Wild
by F.A. Star Hawk
Summary: AU. Shin's a feral child who has just recently been found. Sena's an average stable boy, but after a peculiar set of events he ends up being the only one who can keep Shin calm. A strong bond forms between them, but someone wants them separated. Shin/Sena
1. Chapter 1

FASH: Christmas Break is here! And with it is some free time to write some other stuff, don't worry though, I'll get the next chapter of Play Date up once I figure out how Sena's going to react to meeting Kakei while he's in his uniform. Getting back to this fic though, you'll notice that I'm not using the Japanese honorifics, for some reason I thought using them would clash with this style of writing (sort of), so I'm just using sir, ma'am and the like.

Disclaimer: Shin/Sena would be so much more canon if I owned it. (Actually Anyone/Sena would be more canon, but you already knew that.)

""-speech

''-thoughts

Sena had been very young when he first came to the Shin family to work as a stableboy with his father and he had already known a great deal about them. Because of their high status, mostly due to their breeding of racing horses, a great amount of stories were always flying around about them in town. But there were some things that only the people who worked within the house or had ties with the family knew and gossiped about and although Sena hardly ever left the stables he did hear things from time to time.

Way back when he himself had hardly been a year old the heir to the Shin clan had suddenly disappeared, and at just two years old to boot.

There was speculation that a rival family or a jealous clan had kidnaped him and put him to death or even raised him as one of their own just to further spite his parents.

But the rumor that was by far the most interesting was the one told by stern faced men, hunters employed by the Shin household, their voices so low as they exchanged words that even though they were in the stables with their horses Sena had to strain his ears to hear them.

Shin Seijuro had been raised by bears was the gist of that rumor, somehow after being kidnaped he ended up in the forest in the care of a mother bear.

They'd claim to see him from time to time, a wild figure, not very tall but broad with long hair and covered in dirt, watching them through the trees as they hunted. Beastly but unmistakably human.

It wasn't long before the lady of the house heard the rumors and began to order search parties to go out and look for her son, each time they came back without him and the hope in her eyes would fade just a little more.

Being a stableboy was a rather lonesome occupation, his father was often too busy with his own tasks to speak with him so Sena often found himself imagining what this beast of a boy would be like. Could he talk to bears? How had he survived in the wilderness for so long? Did he eat raw meat?

The horses had no answers for his questions and although over the years many search parties had formed to try and find him they all came back unsuccessful and by the time Sena reached his fourteenth year he was fairly certain that all of his questions would remain unanswered. So even as he helped prepare the horses for another search, this time lead by an up and coming tracker, he felt as though he could already predict the outcome.

The search party left early in the morning and came back late in the evening just as the sun was about to set, by that time only he and his father were the only ones left in the stable to tend to the horses, and although Sena could hear them celebrating as they went towards the house he assumed that they had found something interesting, a clue to where Shin Seijuro's whereabouts might be, because not even Hiruma would be able to find him so fast.

As the men began bringing in their horses they talked excitedly amongst themselves, too many voice at once made it impossible for Sena to make anything out, and it wasn't like they'd answer if he asked them anything, he was just a stableboy after all.

But still... That must have been some clue they found.

-x-x-x-

Hiruma smirked as two of his men dragged the wild boy closer to the Shin residence, it hadn't been too hard to track him down. After gathering up the data on where the Shin-boy had been spotted during which times of the year and what time of the day it was merely a matter of setting up an ambush downwind and waiting.

Shin Seijuro may have been raised by bears, but a good, solid hit to the back of the head had rendered him harmless.

He proudly entered the house without bothering to knock and made his way to the drawing room, grinning widely at the middle-aged woman who'd been doing embroidery until he came into sight.

"Ma'am, I've brought home your son." He stated and the embroidery dropped from her limp fingers.

"You're sure?" She stood up, hands beginning to shake.

"Go see for yourself, he's right outside."

She ran past him and he followed behind her at a slower pace, grin widening as she approached her long lost son, running her hands along his face and through his hair.

"He's just like his father when he was younger." She said, chocking on a sob before taking a deep breath to pull herself together.

"Take him inside, I wish to have him properly groomed for when his father comes home in the morning."

Hiruma frowned and motioned at his men to stay where they were. "I wouldn't advise that ma'am, the shock of waking up in a different location may cause him to turn violent. We should keep him outside."

"I'm his mother! I know what's best for him and I'm sure that deep down he'll remember me." She motioned the two men carrying the unconscious boy inside and Hiruma sighed.

'Women always have to have their way don't they? I'd better stick around for when the inevitable happens.'

The boy had stayed unconscious long enough to be given several warm baths to completely rid him of the years of grime and dirt that had stuck against his flesh. His mother herself washed him the third time around, scrubbing him down with a bar of soap and a cloth until his skin was pink from the friction and the smell of the soap had infused itself onto him.

She pulled him out of the bath with some help and dried him off with a large towel before wrapping another dry one around his waist and having him sat down in a chair in her husband's study.

There she took out a pair of scissors and began to snip away at his long locks, a dreamy expression flickering over her face as she ran a hand through his now short, clean hair and she leaned over to press a kiss against his forehead.

"Welcome home Seijuro." She said just as his eyelids began to flutter open.

Whatever his mother had expected him to do upon seeing her was certainly not what she got.

He tore away from the chair and her embrace and growled darkly before lunging towards a pair of men who had been edging closer to him to restrain him and with a mighty slap of his hand both of them tumbled to the ground.

More people rushed into the room at the sound of the commotion and Shin ripped past them, tumbled down the stairs and broke the front door off of it's hinges on the way out, the towel that had been wrapped around his waist coming undone as he ran.

Hiruma heard the noise but made no move to stop what he knew was going on. He'd only move from his seat when the lady of the house asked him too, preferably with her eyes glued to the floor and her cheeks a rosy red, admittance enough that she had been wrong. Until then he'd sit in the kitchen, smirking as the sounds of chaos surrounded him.

It wasn't long before she arrived just as he pictured she would, eyes downcast and cheeks flaming.

"Please go out and find him. He... He may have made it half way to the forest by now."

"No, he's still on the grounds." Hiruma replied as he calmly stood up and her eyes finally snapped onto his figure.

"How do you know?"

"To get to the forest he would need to go through the town and I highly doubt that having a naked boy running through the market place wouldn't cause an audible commotion." He strutted past the lady of the house on his way to the broken door. "Don't worry, I'll have your boy back before your husband gets home."

-x-x-x-

When Sena first heard a hurried shuffle of someone entering the stable he had assumed it was his father, coming back from preparing the studs for the night in their separate pens, and didn't turn away from his task of brushing down the last mare before her rest. But when a low growl reached his ears he pulled himself away from the task to look over to where the sound had come from.

He cautiously moved over to the empty pen near the entrance, thinking that maybe a hunter's dog had somehow strayed from it's master's side and his eyes widened when he discovered that wasn't the case at all.

The boy in front of him backed himself into the corner and snarled, the muscles in his legs clenching as though he would spring forward any second, even though he was obviously favoring his left leg.

Sena had dealt with frightened mares before, but while nervous mares might kick they certainly wouldn't tear him apart. But this, this wild boy was nervous and wounded, a combination that Sena knew could turn out to be quite disastrous on his part.

He immediately lowered himself to the ground on his hands and knees, hoping that his lower stature would make him seem less of a threat, he avoided looking into the other boy's eyes or baring his teeth in case he took it as a challenge, then he began speaking in a slow whisper that would help calm a frightened horse down, he just hoped it would work in this situation.

He must have been whispering nonsense and an occasional 'please don't hurt me' for several minutes before he heard another shuffle.

The boy was moving forward.

His hushed whispers became a little faster and he desperately wondered where the group who had brought the boy who he was assuming was Shin Seijuro had gone.

When he heard him shuffle forward again he lifted his eyes up only to turn them away twice as fast. Back when the older boy had been shrouded in shadow he hadn't noticed that he wasn't dressed.

This was terrifying and embarrassing at the same time, maybe he should have curled up into a ball and kept his mouth shut.

He couldn't help but flinch when a hand was pressed against his face and his reverent whispers stopped.

The hand resting on his face smelt strongly of soap and he resisted the urge to breath the foreign scent in deeply, even as the hand trailed over his nose in a curious fashion.

Sena looked up from under his eyelashes to see that Shin was running his opposite hand over his own nose, comparing them. Then the hand on Sena's face moved over his cheek to his ear, then along his jawbone, then to his lips. All the while Shin's other hand copied the movement on his own face.

Shin's hand drew away from his face and feeling slightly braver Sena looked up into his eyes. They were intelligent, calculating eyes that Sena really wouldn't have expected on a boy who had been raised in the wild, it made him nervous.

Shin's hand had begun to trail along his arm, lightly moving across his hand to the tips of his fingers, eyes sparkling with curiosity.

Sena slowly lifted his hand and held it out for Shin to examine closer, instead the boy pressed his own against it as if to compare once again, then he threaded their fingers together, doing the same with their other hands, and leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching.

Sena held his breath and tried to calm himself down, his heart felt like it was beating a mile and minute and although Shin seemed to be content with whatever this was who knew if he'd be like this for long.

From outside the stable Hiruma watched, just as he had been ever since Shin had begun to curiously move forward. The boy had calmed down considerably because of the stableboy and it would be very unwise for them to barge in and separate them, this time he would make sure his opinion was taken more seriously.

The lady of the house had objections of course, as did the stableboy's father. It was already cold and dark out and who knew what could happen? But both had agreed to Hiruma's terms in order to ensure the safety of both of their sons, no one wanted the Shin-boy to go on the rampage again.

"We'll wait until they're asleep, which shouldn't be too much longer, then we'll bring them away from the stable, but it seems like his son is the only thing that's keeping your son calm so I suggest that wherever you end up laying him down to rest the other boy should not be far off. Are you both alright with that?" He asked, although he honestly didn't care about their opinions very much, just as long as his advice was followed this time around.

The two parents nodded.

"Good, now it's just a waiting game, don't let anyone else near the stable, who knows what will happen if Shin junior hears someone approach and decides they're trespassing on his territory."

Back in the stable Sena was beginning to feel faint from the strong smell of soap that was emanating from the boy directly in front of him. It hadn't been so bad when it was only the hand but he wasn't used to the flowery smell he was completely surrounded by and he was afraid that if he so much as parted his lips to breathe through his mouth Shin would notice and something bad would happen.

He clenched his eyes shut and tried to tell himself that this was all just a very strange dream.

It was really late now and Sena couldn't help but wonder where on Earth his father, or anyone for that matter, was, surely they hadn't abandoned him as if he were some sort of sacrifice?

A stray wind blew in and he shivered, unable to help it.

Shin pulled away with a frown before shuffling backwards, further into the pen where the wind wouldn't be able to reach them. Sena really felt as though he had no other choice but to follow, so follow he did.

After being pulled snugly into the corner Shin had once again begun an exploration of sorts, his fingers trailing along the seems of Sena's shirt and fingering the buttons.

Figuring that for now Shin wasn't dangerous and in need of something to do to pass the time Sena once again began to whisper about small things:

"This is a stable." " That's a button." and the like, not bothering to tense up when Shin leaned in closer to hear better.

But he did tense up when once again the other boy's fingers began trailing across his lips as he spoke and he turned to look at Shin, who was moving his mouth to mirror the movements of Sena's own.

"Do you want to talk?" He asked slowly, trying to ignore the way Shin's fingers kept running over his lips curiously. "You need to do more then just move your lips for that." And despite his better judgement he gently pulled Shin's hand away from his mouth and held it to his throat so that he could feel the vibration of his vocal chords.

"Do you feel that?" He asked again and Shin's hand pressed a little closer, making it slightly harder to breathe.

Shin lifted his own hand to his throat and waited for something, Sena assumed it was for him to speak again.

"My name is Sena. Can you say that? Sena. Se. Na." With the hand not gripping Shin's at his throat he pointed to himself. "Sena."

Shin's voice was rough as he first began to try and mimic Sena's words without much luck and he became more frustrated with every failed attempt.

"Now, now, no need to get mad. I'm sure that you'll get it sooner or later, besides, your parents are going to make sure that you're well educated. You'll be talking up a storm in just a couple months, I'm sure that'll happen..."

He wasn't sure how long he'd babbled on for when his eyes began to feel heavy and he was dimly aware that Shin's hand had moved away from his throat to intertwine with his own once again.

Then there was darkness.

When Sena awoke it was to the sounds of a scuffle, followed by the shattering of glass. He quickly sat up and looked around.

'This isn't my room.'

There was another smash followed by a muffled yell.

"When I told you to keep the two of them close I meant in the same room!"

There was a thunder of footsteps coming closer and the bedroom door swung open.

"Get out of bed and come with me kid, we need you to do something for us." Hiruma ordered before swiftly turning around, leaving Sena little choice but to leap out of bed and run after him.

By the time they reached the stable for the mares a small crowd had already gathered on front of it but upon seeing Hiruma they parted to create a path, their eyes slowly moving from the blonde to the brunette behind him.

The lord and lady of the house were the closest to the stable but neither had dared to enter, for good reason too, the almost inhuman, enraged snarls that were coming from the inside would be enough to ward off the bravest of men.

Thankfully it was late enough in the morning that all the mares had been let out to go graze on of the family's pastures, otherwise Shin would have had a very good chance at being kicked by a frightened horse.

Hiruma turned and gave him an almost apologetic look. "He's angry because he was separated from you, or at least that's the theory, so get in there and calm him down before his sprained ankle from yesterday gets worse."

"Go in there? Are you serious?"

"I'm sorry to say so, but yes. Now hurry it up." He maneuvered himself behind Sena and began pushing him inside. "Just do whatever it was you did last night and you should be fine."

Sena stumbled inside and immediately the angry sounds stopped. He slowly looked up to see Shin standing in front of him in a pair of blue nightclothes, looking almost relieved for some reason.

"Uh, good morning." Sena greeted, although he was certain that Shin wouldn't understand. "Listen, we've got to go back outside." He began slowly as he reached for the other boy's hand and Shin eagerly intertwined their fingers.

"Do you understand? We need to go." Sena motioned with his other hand at the doors to the stable and began his attempt to lead the other boy out.

Instead of following Shin pulled him closer and glared at the people beyond the door, growling lowly in his throat.

When he spoke again his voice had begun to shake, he really wasn't fond of the growling. "Don't be that way, don't you want to come out here and meet your mom and dad? They're humans too, just like you and me. They won't hurt you." He tried to make himself sound as reassuring as he could but once again when he tried to lead Shin out of the stable the boy kept him back.

"Se... Nnn..." Shin's eyebrows furrowed together as he tried to say the name. "S...Ennn."

Sena quirked his lips up in a smile, still wary about baring his teeth in case the other boy took it as a threat. "Sena, that's my name. Remember?"

"Sennn..."

While Shin was busy trying to pronounce the name Sena had begun leading him outside without the other boy realizing it until they had stepped outside the entrance.

Immediately Shin hunched over and held Sena close as if to protect him.

"Calm him down and give the two a bit of space!" Hiruma ordered and everyone obeyed.

"Don't worry, no one will hurt either of us, it's all going to be alright." Sena was whispering again as slowly and calmly as he could. "These people are going to take good care of you, your parents wouldn't let them do you any harm, you'll be fine without me." He assured as he tried to free himself from Shin's embrace, but Shin's arms just wrapped tighter around him.

"Oh dear, I won't leave if you don't want me to but you really need to loosen up that grip or else I'm afraid you might crush me." He tried to take a deep breath without avail, thankfully Shin seemed to notice and loosened his hold, although he still didn't let him go.

"Uh, I think he's calmed down now." He said, his voice still a little softer than the tone he would normally speak in but he was still heard due to everyone else's silence.

"Alright, we need you to try and lead him inside the house, after that we'll take care of as much of this as we can."

A task easier said then done but whenever Sena slowly inched forward Shin would follow to close the gap that had been created between them. Although Sena could just tell that he was still shooting untrusting glares around at everyone.

'I wonder how much they'll be able to take care of without me around?' He thought when they finally entered the house, Shin tensing up even more then normal and Sena tried to comfortingly run a hand along one of the arms that was wrapped around his upper torso.

"It'll all be okay, you'll see."

The first part of the day was a blur of medial checkups and, on Hiruma's orders, Shin and Sena were to never be separated during any of the processes.

When it finally came time for them to eat a very late lunch Sena lead Shin into the kitchen and tried to get him to sit down in the chair by standing him in front of it and pressing down on his shoulders in the hopes that the pressure would make his knees bend so that he could sit.

Shin just stared at him curiously before moving his own hands onto Sena's shoulders and pushing him down.

Shin's attempt was much more effective then Sena's.

'Maybe if I tried to show him it would work better?' Sena sat down into a chair and looked up at Shin expectantly before moving towards him and once again pushing down on his shoulders.

This time Shin did sit, although he looked rather uncomfortable about the position.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to this soon." Sena assured him and Shin had just begun moving his hand, probably to curiously map his lips or vocal chords again, when his mother came into the room with two bowls of soup.

"I'll take it from here dear." She informed Sena as she handed him a bowl of soup before sitting herself right across from her son and attempting to spoon feed him the broth.

Shin refused to open his mouth.

Sena ate his own soup slowly, taking notice of the way Shin's eyes flickered over in his direction as if to constantly reassure himself that Sena was there.

'I don't really understand why he's so focused on me, he should realize by now that everyone is the same as him, shouldn't he?' After watching another failed attempt to get the older boy to eat he stepped forward.

"Ma'am, would you mind if I tried?" He asked meekly and she turned to him, eyes laden with unshed tears.

"I suppose he wouldn't mind if it were you." She muttered sadly before standing up and leaving the room.

Sena sat down in the chair she had occupied uncomfortably. "You really should be nicer to your mother you know." He set his own bowl of soup aside and took Shin's.

"Sennn..." Shin frowned a little. "Na."

The brunette couldn't help but smile. "Very good, but now it's time to eat." He held out the spoon which Shin stared at suspiciously.

"Not having much luck eh?"

Sena started at the voice and Shin glared darkly at the blonde who had appeared behind the brunette.

"Uh, Hiruma, sir. Um, I guess not really." Sena nervously sputtered and the tracker loomed over him.

"And why do you suppose that is?" He asked and Sena shrugged. "Come on, I'm sure you can think of something."

"Well, he must be able to smell that it's food, he saw me eating mine, but maybe he's suspicious about what's in his?"

"Good, what else do you think might factor into this?"

"Well, um, he's not used to utensils and isn't really sure of what to do with them?"

Hiruma patted his head in a friendly manner, smirking a bit when Shin growled. "And what do you suppose you could do to prove to him that the contents of his bowl are okay and get rid of the spoon so that he'll eat willingly?"

"Well, he could just drink it from the bowl couldn't he? And I could drink some first to show him it's alright?"

"We don't know if he'd be able to drink it properly, he may end up tipping the bowl too far back and get covered with hot soup. At times like these it's easiest to just mimic birds."

Sena blinked slowly, not entirely sure if he liked where this was headed. "What do you mean by that?"

"Take a mouthful of soup and slot your lips over his so that it drains into his mouth."

Sena went bright red and Shin looked at him curiously.

"B-bu-but-"

"It's not like you're kissing him, go on and feed him, I'll make sure no one else comes in." Hiruma cackled as he left the kitchen and Sena was left staring at Shin who stared back silently.

'Alright, this is for the greater good right? The greater good.' Sena brought the bowl to his lips and took in a mouthful before moving over to where Shin was sitting.

'I just hope this works and he doesn't kill me for it.' Sena clenched his eyes shut and leaned over Shin, one hand was cradling his jawbone and pushing in at the hinges slightly in the hopes that Shin would get the message and open his mouth.

The older boy did so and with a sigh Sena held his lips against Shin's, allowing his to open and transfer the soup into Shin's mouth.

When it was over Sena stood back, flushing darkly even though he knew it really hadn't technically been a kiss.

"I just want you to know that I'm not doing that for you again, you have to eat it from the spoon next time." He ordered, but Shin just sat there, licking at his lips in contemplation and ignoring the spoon that Sena was holding out to him.

"Why must you make me do things the hard way?" The brunette sighed before taking another mouthful of broth.

This was going to take a while.

When they were finally finished lunch, Sena wasn't able to help but think that Shin had enjoyed it a little more then what was natural, they were lead into the drawing room and Sena smiled in relief when he saw that his father was there.

"Dad!" He surged forward and wrapped his arms around his father's waist. "Are you here to take me home?"

"Well, yes." He father replied in an uncertain tone as Shin began to angrily stare at him. "But I'm afraid that afterwards you'll be coming right back here."

"But why? I thought I would only stay here until he calmed down." Sena slowly unwrapped his arms and took a step back only to find himself on the receiving end of an embrace. Shin's arms coming around him and tucking Sena's head under his chin as he stared at the other people in the room challengingly.

The lady of the house sighed. "His strange attachment to you is why we need you to come back right after you've packed up your things. From now on you are no longer a stableboy but are to be Seijuro's constant companion until he becomes used to everything and you aren't the only one who can calm him down. Until then you'll be living here with us."

"I'll still be able to visit my mom and dad though, right?" He asked and Seijuro's father nodded.

"Of course, we wouldn't dream of completely isolating you from your parents. We just need you to keep Seijuro calm until he realizes that he's safe here."

Seijuro's mother stepped forward and in response he tightened his grip around Sena, growling lowly in his throat when she reached forward to pry them apart.

She looked at Sena and her eyes flickered with jealousy for one terrifying moment before it was gone. "If you wouldn't mind detaching yourself from my son, the sooner you leave the sooner you can get back here."

"Okay..." Sena gripped at Shin's arms and gently pushed them away and turned around, biting his lip when he saw that several men had gathered behind Shin, probably to restrain him in case he tried anything once Sena left.

"Listen Shin, I'll be right back, okay?" He brought up a hand and trailed it along Shin's cheeks, smiling a little when the older boy nuzzled against him, at least he had stayed calm so far. "I just need to go get a couple of things with my dad and then I'll come right back, so you've got to be good while I'm gone." He slowly retracted his hand and stepped back, Shin moving to follow him but he was held back by two pairs of hands griping him, one pair on each of his arms.

"You'll be alright Shin, no one is going to hurt you." He took another step back and Shin stared at him, eyes dawning with a comprehension Sena wouldn't have thought he was capable of.

"Go quickly before he realizes what's going on." The lady of the house ordered but it was already too late. Shin had begun to thrash around, snarling and eyes going wild.

"Sena! Sena!" He chanted as Sena ran from the room, intent on coming back as quickly as possible.

With a sigh Hiruma ordered one of his men to knock the boy out, ignoring the enraged sound his mother made as he became limp.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" She hissed and her husband laid his hands upon her shoulders, trying to calm her down.

"Dear, don't you think that Hiruma's been making the right choices so far? I think we should just go along with what he wants."

"But why did he have to knock him out? Couldn't he just keep him restrained?"

Hiruma sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know about you but I find it more humane to have a 'free spirit' knocked out as opposed to restrained. This way when Sena comes back we don't have to worry about your son trying to tackle him to the ground or steal him away. The longer the stableboy is away the more possessive Seijuro will get of him and then you'll never be able to separate them. By knocking him out when he wakes up it won't seem like Sena's been gone as long."

The mother, instead of commenting on his plan instead asked: "The boy's name is Sena?" And Hiruma snorted, wondering what kind of employer didn't know the name of their employees.

"Yeah, why?"

"Seijuro, he was talking. His first word was 'Sena'." Her eyes flashed with jealousy again and this time the expression stayed longer before she was able to calm herself down.

"Follow me, I'll show you to his room."

-x-x-x-

Although Sena had packed his things as quickly as possible saying goodbye to his mother was taking far too long than necessary.

"Mom, I'm a fifteen minute walk up the road, I'm sure they'll let you in whenever you want to visit me."

"But it will be so strange, cooking only for two. Are you sure you have to go?" She held him tightly against her, even tighter then Shin held him and he struggled for breath for a moment before answering.

"Mom, he really needs me to keep him calm. I can't just leave him alone without anyone to trust."

His mother looked down at him earnestly. "You're such a sweet boy Sena, no wonder he trusts you so much, he must be able to tell what a wonderful boy you are, even if he grew up in the wild." She pressed a kiss against his forehead. "Maybe once he's settled down a bit you could bring him over for a visit?"

"I'll see what I can do mom, but I don't think his parents will want him to stray far from the house." He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "I'll come back to visit soon, I promise."

He exited his home and walked back to the Shin residence, his father staying silent beside him until they reached the property and he excused himself, needing to get back to work.

"I'll see you tomorrow then." Sena called back as he began walking up the stone path towards the house, pausing at the front door and wondering if he should knock since technically he lived here now as well.

He decided to knock just to play it safe and the lady who answered the door quickly recognized him and began leading Sena up the stairs and past many doors until they stopped at the very last one.

"The lord and lady of the house wished for their son to be far away from any noise that might startle him, so the three rooms closest to you are currently unoccupied. Once he begins to adjust to his surroundings we'll have you moved to the room directly beside him, but for now you'll be sharing." She explained and she slowly rested her hand on the doorknob, hesitating for a moment on wether or not is was safe to open the door before she pushed it open, sighing in relief when she saw the figure sleeping on one of the two beds in the room.

"Dinner is at seven o' clock sharp, there's a clock on the night stand with a chime so it will be easy for you to know when the time is drawing near. If you feel like resting up instead just don't bother coming down and we'll make sure that you have a good breakfast ready for you in the morning."

She gently ushered Sena inside and closed the door behind him.

The brunette moved forward to check on Shin curiously. 'Did he really fall asleep? Or did someone knock him out?'

He had been expecting to come into the house and find it sounding much like the stable had that morning, it was a bit less frightening to enter a room when the other occupant wasn't up to make angry, inhuman noises.

With a small smile he ran a hand through Shin's hair and tucked a stay lock behind his ear. He wasn't too bad when he was sleeping peacefully, almost like a completely normal human.

Sena pulled himself away and began unpacking his things and putting them away in the wooden dresser that was located between the two beds. Inside there were already a multitude of clothes meant for Shin and Sena trailed his fingers along the soft fabric before a thought struck him.

'If he can't dress himself because he doesn't know how, does that mean I'm going to have to dress him?'

His thought were interrupted by and knock on the door and he quickly turned around and answered it. It was the same girl as before.

"Sorry to disturb you, but the lady of the house just informed me that if you're going to be joining them for supper tonight she wants you to have a bath, so if you wouldn't mind following me..."

Sena followed after her obediently and entered the bathroom, where the tub was already full of lightly steaming water.

"If you don't mind changing out of your clothes now so that I can take them to get them washed and fetch you a proper pair of pajamas it'll be much appreciated." She turned around. "I won't look or anything."

Sena blushed but did as she asked and when she left, shutting the door behind her he allowed himself to sink into the bath with a sigh.

He'd only ever bathed in cool water in a cramped tub, but he could fully stretch out his legs in this one, he could get used to this.

He closed his eyes and wondered what it would be like to fall asleep surrounded in such heavenly warmth, not that he could find out. He needed to make this quick in case Shin woke up soon.

He dunked himself under the water and furiously began scrubbing at himself with the bar of soap that had been resting on the ledge of the tub before dunking himself under the water again.

When he removed himself from the tub he dried himself off and looked at the pajamas folded neatly by the door. He hadn't even heard it open again.

He slipped the soft material on and padded out of the bathroom towards his shared bedroom where he began to strip out of the pajamas, figuring that he'd need actual clothes for when he went down to eat.

'I wonder if Shin will wake up in time for dinner? But even if he does it's not like I can... 'Feed' him in front of everyone.'

He had just slipped on a pair of pants when Shin awoke with a start behind him.

"Sena?!" He scrambled out of his bed and lunged towards the brunette, wrapping his arms around him securely as they both fell onto Sena's bed.

"Yes, that would be me." Sena somehow managed to say calmly, even as Shin gripped him in a bear hug of nearly the truest sense. "I'm happy that you're excited to see me, but you have to let go." He tried to worm his way out of the older boy's grip but instead of loosening his arms he moved so that his legs had wrapped around the boy as well.

Sena was securely trapped, much to Shin's obvious delight.

"Sena." He nuzzled his nose into the brunette's hair and drifted off to sleep, leaving Sena in quite a predicament. He was hungry and fairly uncomfortable with no way to break free and have some supper.

'Well, at least he's warm.' Sena snuggled a bit closer to him, solely for the purpose of stealing some of Shin's body heat.

'This makes two nights that I've fallen asleep with a boy right next to me. I wonder how many more times I'm going to have to go through this?'


	2. Chapter 2

FASH: Here's some more lovely Shin/Sena coming your way! Wow, I can't believe I got so many reviews for the first chapter, I hope this next part is up to your standards.

""-speech

''-thoughts

Sena awoke to the sound of his stomach growling and with a sigh he attempted to roll over, not wanting to get out of his warm bed just yet, only to find that he couldn't move.

His eyes snapped open and he tensed before remembering why exactly he wasn't able to move. Shin hadn't loosened his grip at all during the night and when he finally got out of bed he was probably going to have a huge kink in his neck.

"Sena." Shin nuzzled against him again, relatively peaceful until his own stomach began to growl.

"Sounds like we're both going to need some breakfast." Sena laughed quietly before glancing out the window, it was still really dark outside and even if he tried he wouldn't be able to make out where the hands of the clock were pointing.

"I'm sure that there are some people up by now, come on, let's get out of bed." Sena patted his hands against Shin's arms and the older boy reluctantly let go, allowing Sena to stand up and stretch out his cramped muscles before he turned back to Shin, holding a finger to his lips in the customary 'hush' gesture.

"Alright Shin, when we go downstairs we'll have to be very quiet so that we don't wake anyone up, okay?" He whispered.

Shin made no signs of understanding, but Sena had already expected that and just hoped that by speaking quietly Shin would get the idea that they were trying not to make too much noise. He was pretty sure he would understand that much, after all, he had such intelligent eyes.

Sena lead Shin through the hallway, down the stairs and towards the kitchen, not being able to help but feel proud of himself as Shin crept behind him, completely silent.

Upon reaching the kitchen Sena blindly stumbled around in search of the pantry, bumping in to various pieces of furniture several times before the light of a candle flame flickered behind him.

"What are you doing?" Asked a familiar voice and Sena turned to see the girl from yesterday afternoon looking at him curiously. "You're both hungry because you skipped dinner, aren't you?"

Sena nodded on behalf of the both of them and the girl sighed before moving into a different part of the kitchen.

"I hope an apple will tide you both over until the normal time we get up to make breakfast because I want to go back to sleep." She came back and handed Sena two apples before yawning. "Next time just come down for dinner, I sleep right beside the kitchen so I can hear when you run into things."

"Sorry, I really didn't mean to."

"It's okay, just as long as you don't make a habit out of this, the lady of the house didn't seem very happy that you didn't bring her son down too, so it really would be best for you to just eat at the normal, scheduled times from now on." She glanced at Shin out of the corner of her eye before turning back to Sena. "My name's Suzuna by the way, you're Sena right?" She yawned again.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Well Sena, see you in about four hours at breakfast." Suzuna left the kitchen, leaving her candle on the table to provide them some light.

Sena handed Shin an apple and bit into his own gratefully, managing to make if halfway through the piece of fruit before noticing that not only was Shin not eating his, but he was staring at him expectantly.

"Oh no, I'm not doing that mouth to mouth feeding again, you must have eaten apples when you were growing up." Sena said in exasperation, but Shin still stared at him expectantly and refused to bring the fruit to his lips, even as his stomach growled again.

With a final bite of his own apple Sena tossed the core into the compost and sighed, rummaging through the drawers for a small knife. After finding one he took the apple from Shin's hands and ignored the almost smug look on the boy's face.

"If I didn't know any better I'd think that you planned this. But even if you did plan something, I'm not relenting." He began cutting the apple into small slices, paying close attention to try and keep himself from getting a cut in the near darkness.

"You may think you know what's going to happen. But I already told you that I wouldn't be doing that mouth to mouth thing anymore."

It was nice to be able to talk to a human being for a change. He hardly ever conversed with anyone other than his parents or the mares in the stable. And in the case of his parents he was usually talked at more then he himself spoke, being the one who was listened to for a change, even if the person who was listening didn't really understand, was a wonderful feeling.

He held up the first apple slice.

"Alright now, say 'ah."

Shin cocked his head curiously and Sena took his right hand and held it against his throat.

"Ah. Ahhhh."

Shin opened his mouth going: "A-ahhhh." and Sena took the opportunity to pop the apple slice into his mouth.

Shin chewed on it thoughtfully before swallowing and opening his mouth again. "Ahhh."

When Shin finally finished the apple Sena took the candle that Suzuna had left them and lead Shin back up the stairs and to their room, tugging lightly on Shin's nightshirt when the older boy began making himself comfortable on the brunette's bed, leaving some extra room for Sena.

"You know that I'm back now, so you can sleep in your own bed, right?"

Shin made no move to get out of Sena's bed so Sena settled himself down in Shin's, not entirely surprised when the older boy followed after him.

With a sigh Sena blew out the candle and settled down for a couple more hours of sleep.

'I wonder how long it'll take for him to be able to sleep on his own?' It was a puzzling question, especially considering that he'd probably been sleeping by himself for several years, so he decided not to think too hard about it.

He woke up to the sound of someone knocking against the bedroom door and he slowly moved from his previous position of being curled up against Shin's warm chest to get up and open it.

From the other side Suzuna was smiling at him widely and announced that breakfast would be ready soon.

"I figured that you'd feel exhausted from oversleeping, so I decided to give you a bit of a wake up call."

"Oh, thanks."

"No problem." Suzuna titled her head slightly and looked over Sena's shoulder into the room. "So, after I left the kitchen last night you were still speaking loud enough for me to hear a couple interesting things. What's this about mouth to mouth?"

Sena went red and sputtered, the sound of his distress woke Shin up and the older boy was in front of him in a flash, glaring down at Suzuna in an extremely intimidating fashion.

Suzuna just grinned back and Sena nervously took hold of Shin's hand and pulled him back. "It's okay Shin, everything's okay." He reassured while sending a distressed look Suzuna's way.

"Oh, I won't tell anyone if that's what you're worried about. I imagine that his mother would have a cow if she knew your lips had gone anywhere near each other's. I was just wondering if, since you'll be eating with other people today, you needed me to steer clear of certain foods to serve him."

Well, that was going to be helpful, he half expected that she was just here to make fun of him or something along those lines.

"Well, he doesn't know how to use utensils yet, so just stuff you could eat with your hands."

Suzuna nodded along. "Good, good, but does he know how to use a cup? We don't want him to get dehydrated."

Sena pursed his lips together and glanced at Shin, gripping at the other boy's hand just a little tighter. "I... I'll try and teach him how to use one."

"Good, and while you're at it you may want to teach him a couple other things, apparently Elf Bro saw him sneaking around outside a couple of hours ago to, uh, 'do his business.'"

Sena assumed that by 'Elf Bro' she meant Hiruma, who had oddly pointed ears, and digested the other information she had presented to him.

"Really? I hadn't noticed that he'd left at all." He turned to look at Shin who noticed and stared right back.

"Why would you notice? It's not that hard to sneak out of a room while another person is sleeping unless..." Suzuna trailed off and gave Sena a knowing look before turning back around. "In any case, you'd better get dressed and come down to the dining room soon."

Sena turned to look Shin up and down before thinking out loud. "Someone else dressed you in you nightclothes, didn't they? Then how are we..." He trailed off and went pink, the colour deepening when Shin curiously ran a hand across his cheek.

"Alright, come back inside the room, we've got to figure a couple things out." He dragged Shin back inside, closed the door tightly behind them and sat him down him his bed before opening the drawers and rummaging through them for an easy set of clothes to slip Shin into.

Undressing and dressing Shin while keeping his eyes shut for nearly the entire time wasn't exactly the ideal way for him to spend the beginning of his morning and by the end of it Shin wasn't looking very happy and kept trying to shrug the tighter clothes off, not used to the feel of them.

When the movements to free himself from the restraining clothing got a little more violent Sena took action and gently placed his hands on Shin's shoulders, looking down at him beseechingly.

"Please just keep them on, I promise you'll get used to it, please?"

Shin looked uncomfortable and ran a hand over the loose material covering Sena's chest as if to ask 'why do you get to wear this?'

"I'll be changing too, once I know you're not going to rip yourself out of your clothes. I know you're not used to it, but I really need you to keep them on. Can you do that for me?"

Shin eyed him intently as he ran one of his hands down the row of buttons on the shirt Sena had put on him.

"Sena?" He questioned and the brunette nodded.

"Yes, for me, for Sena." He pulled away and Shin reluctantly refraining from ripping out of his clothes, much to Sena's relief.

"Alright, I've got to change now too, so can you turn around?" He asked, figuring if Shin was able to catch his drift about the clothes then he might understand what he was saying this time around too.

Apparently he was wrong though, Shin didn't move.

"Turn around?" Sena twirled his finger around in the air for a moment before figuring that might confuse Shin more and instead he turned his body around, keeping his back at Shin for a few seconds before facing him again.

Shin still didn't budge and Sena was fairly certain that if they both didn't come down soon someone was bound to get impatient and agitated.

"Alright, new plan. Could you cover your eyes for me?" Sena made a show of covering his own eyes before taking Shin's hands and lifting them up over the older boy's eyes. When he pulled his hands away Shin's hand fell back down into his lap and Sena pulled them up once again, rubbing at the back of them lightly before letting go again.

This time they stayed in place and Sena turned around and changed as quickly as he could, not wanting Shin's hands to fall away before he was moderately dressed.

When he finished he turned back around and was pleased to see that Shin's hands were still covering his eyes. With a grateful smile he took Shin's hands in his own and moved them back down.

"Thank you very much." He was smiling wide enough to show off his teeth for the first time, no longer afraid that Shin would take the baring of his teeth a challenge, as he lead Shin downstairs for breakfast.

His smile was quick to fade when they finally made it to the dining room, he couldn't help but feel as if there was some sort of murderous intent directed at him as he sat Shin between his mother and himself.

At the head of the table the lord of the house gave the pair a small smile, across from him Hiruma smirked and Sena didn't dare turn to see what the lady of the house's expression was.

Thankfully breakfast itself wasn't an entirely awkward experience, Shin was well behaved and would eat certain things with his own hands as long as he saw that the boy beside him was eating as well, although sometimes he sent Sena a look that lead the brunette to believe that he wanted to be hand fed again.

And Shin was a quick learner, after watching Sena demonstrate how to drink from a glass several times he mimicked the movement and Sena beamed at him proudly before he noticed the look being sent at him from above Shin's head and the smile was once again wiped off his face.

Seijuro's father, noticing the tense atmosphere going on to his right struck up a conversation with Hiruma.

"Are you certain that you can't stay any longer? We really could use more of your advice."

Hiruma leaned back in his chair. "I've got other things to do and I've already given you my opinion on certain matters, just make sure you follow my advice." His eyes trailed over to the lady of the house before locking back on the man at the head of the table. "I'll come back in a couple months, at the end of spring, to check up on everything."

Sena quietly bit into an apple as the two men conversed and couldn't help but wonder what would happen when the blonde left, would Seijuro's father and mother really follow the advice that Hiruma had given them? He hoped so, things seemed to go a lot smoother when everyone did whatever the blonde told them to do.

When the blonde left the table to get all of his things ready to leave the lord of the house cleared his throat before turning his gaze to Sena.

"Now then Sena, Hiruma has given me the contact information of a speech pathologist that he thinks will be able to help Seijuro learn how to speak properly. I'll be sending him a letter that will ask him to come as soon as possible and stay for however long it takes to teach my son how to properly communicate with people."

Sena nodded along, not entire sure why he was being told this.

"But he also told me that it wouldn't be strange if Seijuro didn't take any interest in this at all if you're not also trying to get him to speak, can we expect your cooperation?"

"Yes, of course." Sena replied and Seijuro's father smiled widely at him.

"Wonderful, I'll go to my study and write up the letter right now. I'm hoping that he'll be able to make it here before winter sets in and it gets harder to travel due to the snow." He stood up from his chair and walked out of the room.

It was eerily silent for several seconds before Seijuro's mother took a deep, calming breath and looked at Seijuro, her face softening instantly.

"I'll see you later Seijuro, do try and be on your best behavior." She said before standing up and making her way out of the room, completely ignoring Sena's presence.

Sena wasn't sure what he preferred, being glared at, or being treated like he didn't actually exist.

After awkwardly finishing his breakfast in the intense silence that followed Sena sat back in his chair and sighed.

"Your mom hates me."

Shin cocked his head to the side curiously in response.

"I bet once you don't need me around anymore she won't even give me my job as a stableboy back and'll order me to stay off the grounds so that we can't see each other ever again." He slumped further into his seat and Shin, probably in an effort to make him feel better, grabbed onto him and pulled him into a protective embrace.

"Sena. Sena. Sena." He whispered in a tone probably meant to match Sena's comforting one, but the end result was a bit more husky than it should have been and Sena was embarrassed to feel himself blush because of it.

Then, just to make everything more embarrassing, that's when Suzuna came in to begin cleaning up and upon seeing the two boys as they were she went red and apologized for interrupting before rushing back out.

Sena wanted to move after her and tell her that whatever she thought was going on was just a misunderstanding, but Shin's strong arms prevented him from doing so.

With a sigh he relaxed himself into Shin's embrace, not bothering to protest when the older boy pulled him into his lap without much effort.

"I wonder how long it'll take for you to get tired of me? I was only a stableboy to begin with, I'm not that special." He traced small patters over Shin's chest with the tip of his index finger.

"I wonder how long it'll take for your mother's ideals to rub off on you and you'll never listen to me again." He frowned a bit at his own pessimistic thoughts, it wasn't like he really could have expected something strange like this to last for a long time anyways.

"Hiruma will be leaving soon, we'd better go see him off." He tried to move out of Shin's embrace but once again the boy wouldn't let him go so Sena settled back down with a wan smile.

"I suppose I'll just enjoy these protective moments that you have while they last."

It was nearly an hour after Hiruma left that Sena noticed Shin was acting stranger than normal. He seemed to be constantly alert and he explored around the house, as if he were looking for something. When he was done with his exploration he turned to Sena who'd been trailing behind him, eyes glinting.

"I suppose everything is to your liking then?" Sena asked dryly before something rather unexpected happened.

Shin gripped him by the wrist and ran right out of the house.

Sena made a variety of protests and when that didn't work he tried to pull his weight back to get Shin to stop. Which he did, but only long enough to scoop Sena into his arms and throw him over his shoulder before starting up again.

Sena realized, rather belatedly, that Shin must have been planning to escape back to the forest all along. He knew that Hiruma had been the one to track him down, knew that without his leadership the others didn't stand a chance of capturing him and once he was certain the blonde was gone he made a break for it, bringing Sena along with him.

This was not good, from what Sena could catch glimpses of from his uncomfortable perch he could tell that Shin was running incredibly fast and so far no one was following after them. By the time everyone in the Shin household realized that they were gone they would already have too much of a head start for them to catch up.

'Oh God, where is he taking me?' They had entered the forest now, most of the brilliant coloured leaves had already fallen onto the forest floor, blurring together when Sena's eyes stayed locked on the ground, and Shin still wasn't slowing down.

In one final, valiant effort to free himself he braced his hands against Shin's back and pushed up, but just as he did so the back of his head smashed into a low branch.

He fell back into his previous position, unconscious.

He awoke with a start several hours later to the sight of Shin hovering over him and, stifling a shriek, he moved to sit up, only to have Shin move closer in concern and have their foreheads collide.

Sena fell back to the ground, hands clasped against his forehead and rocking back and forth from the pain while Shin shook it off and recovered in just a moment.

"Sena?" He gripped Sena's hands in his own and pulled them away, frowning when the brunette didn't respond.

"Sena?"

Sena had gone completely still and he stared up at Shin without blinking, allowing the situation to slowly sink in.

The sun was high in the sky so he'd been dead to the world for at least a couple hours and in that time Shin had taken him deep into parts of the forest Sena never would have dared to venture. He had absolutely no idea where he was and had no idea on how he could get back to the town, although he highly doubted that Shin would let him out of sight for too long anyways.

'I am so doomed.' He slowly sat up and ran a hand through his hair nervously, trying his best not to hyperventilate.

Shin could survive out here, Shin was used to braving the elements and surviving in the wild. Sena was not.

He stood up on unsteady feet, all too aware of the worried look being sent his way.

"Shin, where did you take me? How do I get back home?" He asked shakily and Shin took his hand in a comforting grip, pulling him off in another direction.

"This isn't good, this really isn't good." Sena muttered as he followed Shin, eyes glued to the ground although he wasn't really seeing it.

Thus when the ground beneath him became a little uneven and slippery it was all too easy for him to fall into the river they had been walking beside, Shin's grip on his hand had loosened and although he did make a grab for him it was too late.

Sena hit the water and sputtered before getting out of it as quickly as possible, already beginning to shiver from the cold. The day was just getting worse as it progressed and if he didn't get out of his freezing, wet clothes soon he was bound to get sick.

"Sena." Shin worriedly swept him into an embrace, resting his chin atop Sena's head once again as he lead Sena through several narrow openings through the trees and into a rocky cave.

Sena's eyes were drawn to the ground when he felt it become softer through his socks and his eyes widened slightly at the pile of furs he was treading upon. He was fairly surprised they weren't giving off any rank smells and could only assume that Shin had taken these from anyone foolish enough to travel this deep into the woods.

"I guess these is how you survived the winters, huh? After the first couple of winters with your mother bear that is." Sena moved out of Shin embrace and removed his shirt quickly before laying it flat on the ground. He moved to remove his pants, but paused when he felt fingers trailing down his spine.

"Sh-Shin, now's not the time for any weird explorations." He stuttered as he was turned around to face the older boy who was staring at his exposed chest curiously.

'Well, he's never really seen me without a shirt on since it was dark at the time, maybe he thought I was different underneath or something?'

Shin's hand pressed against the center of his chest by his heart, once again mimicking the gesture on himself, although he frowned upon discovering the material was in the way and once again tried to rip himself out of it.

"Stop that, you can't tear up these clothes, we'll need them when we go back home, because we will be going back home." Sena said as he began undoing the buttons, Shin's eyes keenly trailing the movements of his fingers.

"There, now we can take that off, although I can't imagine why you'd want to take of your warm, mostly dry layer of clothing so that you can compare our heart beats." Sena sighed and slipped the shirt off of Shin, placing it beside his own before coming to stand in front of him. "Alright, where were we..." Sena took hold of Shin's hand and held it over his heart, smiling a little when Shin copied the movement on himself.

"Can you feel that? That's my heart beating. My heart. Do you think you can say heart? Heart."

Shin eyebrows furrowed. "Heaaa... Rrrrt."

Sena smiled widely. "That's very, very good." He cooed. "You're really getting the hang of this, you didn't even need to rest your hand against my vocal chords this time around. I bet I could teach you a lot of words. We're in a cave, a ca-ah!"

Shin's hand was moving, his thumb curiously rubbing against his nipple. Sena took a surprised step back and tripped onto the furs, Shin staring down at him with raised eyebrows before moving to follow Sena down, presumably to find out why Sena had reacted in such a way.

The brunette quickly rolled to the side and threw his wet shirt back on, no longer as worried about getting sick as he was about Shin doing any more explorations.

"Well, I think I've had enough of being shirtless for today, I think I'm just going to close my eyes and try and pretend that this isn't happening." Sena said as he laid down of the furs and clenched his eyes shut, not bothering to open them when he heard Shin shift around or when it suddenly became unbearably silent.

He stayed like that for a long while until deciding it was awfully strange that Shin was being so quiet and keeping his hands to himself, so he curiously opened up one eye.

Shin was nowhere to be found.

"Now would normally be a good time to try and escape, if I knew how to get home." He sighed and closed his eyes again. "I wonder what he left for anyways? Maybe he got sick of me? But that doesn't seem quite right..." He trailed off as he heard a shuffling sound come from just outside of the cave and he nervously shuffled backwards, tensing up.

'I hope there aren't any other wild animals that decided to make this place home.'

He sighed in relief when Shin walked in, although he tensed up again when he saw what Shin was carrying.

A dead rabbit.

The older boy smiled and sat down beside him and dug his nails into the soft underbelly of the animal, beginning to rip away it's flesh.

'Don't look, don't look, if you can't see it, it's not happening.' Sena chanted to himself as he turned away and covered his ears, already feeling slightly sick from just the thought of what was happening beside him.

'This answers so many questions in a way I never wanted them answered.' He tensed when he felt a hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to turn back around and he valiantly resisted for as long as he could before Shin overpowered him.

He clenched his eyes shut, refusing to look in fear that he'd be sick from the sight. But being that he was unable to see meant he wasn't prepared for what Shin had in store for him next. Apparently he figured that if he was hungry, Sena would be hungry.

Sena blanched when he felt something mildly warm and almost slimy being pressed against his lips. He quickly shook his head and moved back until he was pressed up against the wall of the cave, hoping that Shin would get the drift that he didn't feel like eating raw meat.

When Shin didn't follow after him he allowed himself to pry open one eye to see Shin staring at him curiously as he chewed.

"Thanks for thinking about my well being Shin, but I'll be fine." Sena said breathlessly as Shin moved forward, hand reaching out to lightly grip on the hinges of Sena's jaw.

'He isn't going to-' Sena tried to clench his jaw shut as Shin's face came closer and his fingers pressed a little harder to open up Sena's mouth before he slanted his lips over the brunette's.

Sena brought up his hands to push against Shin's shoulders, struggling to push the larger boy away as he mimicked what Sena had done a day before when Shin had refused to eat the soup they had been given for lunch.

Sena gagged as the first piece of pre-chewed, raw meat entered his mouth and he fought even harder to get away, the feeling of sickness he'd had multiplying tenfold.

Shin moved back after transferring the food into Sena's mouth, probably to get another mouthful, but Sena didn't let him have the chance.

He broke away and ran out of the cave before landing on his knees and spitting the contents of his mouth out, dry-heaving and gaging at the taste it had left behind.

"Sena?" Shin came up behind him cautiously, one hand comfortingly trailing over Sena's back as he knelt beside him.

"Never. Ever. Do that again." Sena managed to say as he caught his breath and wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his damp shirt before clutching at his sides and curling in upon himself.

Shin worriedly pulled him into his arms and brought him back into the cave, gently laying him down and running a hand through his hair.

"Sena?"

"Just leave me alone." Sena managed to whisper out, not surprised at all when Shin moved even closer.

He felt oddly exhausted after that little misadventure, if you could really call it that, and he closed his eyes in hopes that when he opened them up again this would have all turned out to be a bad, realistic dream.

Instead when he opened them up again hours later he felt sweaty, feverish, weak and just plain awful.

He groaned and tried to sit up without much success , the sound and movement attracting Shin's attention to him and the older boy moved over towards him, eyes scanning over Sena's unfocussed eyes and his flushed cheeks before curiously setting a hand again his face with a frown, doing the same to his own face. His frown deepened as he felt their difference in temperatures.

"Shin, we really need to go back home." Sena mumble lowly as he pushed himself up onto his feet, trying to ignore the sudden dizziness that swept over him as he stood.

"We've got to go, staying out here is just going to make everything worse." He stumbled towards the mouth of the cave, Shin following behind him closely, gripping onto him when Sena began to stumble.

"Please, just take me home." He pleaded as he allowed himself to sag in Shin's embrace, the couple of steps he'd taken had used up seemingly all of his energy.

"Take me home." He whispered again and Shin looked down at him, worry all over his face.

"Home?" The older boy repeated and Sena slowly nodded, trying to think of a word that Shin would recognize to associate with what he wanted.

"Parents. Take me to where our parents are."

"Parents?" Shin repeated, something like realization dawning in his eyes.

"Yes, parents." Sena mumbled weakly before he was out for the count.


	3. Chapter 3

FASH: One of my favorite quarterback/receiver pairings are showing up later in this chapter (Oh, who ever could it be?), it's going to be fun!

""-speech

''-thoughts

Sena was aware of muffled sounds long before he actually realized he was awake and with a great amount of effort he opened up his heavy eyes.

He didn't even have the energy to scream in surprise when he saw Shin hovering over him and instead focussed on what was beyond Shin, a ceiling.

'Thank God.' He somehow managed to think, even though his brain was working at a sluggish pace. 'He knew what I was talking about.'

He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but found he was unable to relax enough to drift off due to the constant puff of Shin's breath against his face.

"I'm awake, you don't need to be this close anymore." Sena muttered, although he was still to tired to really care.

There was sudden peal of laughter of the female variety and Sena tried to look over Shin's shoulder to see who it was coming from.

"It's so cute how worried he was about while you were sleeping, his mom kept trying to separate you, but he just refused to budge." Suzuna's voice drifted over to him from behind Shin and soon enough her face came into view over Shin's shoulder.

"How are you holding up?" She asked with a smile and Sena shrugged.

"I feel really tired, what happened, how long have I been asleep?"

"Well, when young Shin here disappeared everyone went frantic and started a bunch of search parties, they came back when it started getting dark and everyone was about to get to bed when we heard some commotion happening outside. Imagine our surprise when we go outside and see Shin carrying you to the house. The lord of the house moved to you so quick I could hardly believe it. We changed you out of your damp clothes and tucked you in bed, you've been sleeping for about nine hours and you'll be happy to hear that the worst of your fever is over." Suzuna told him with a smile.

"Really? I've been sleeping for nine hours, but I feel so lethargic." Sena responded slowly, a blush creeping into his cheeks when Shin began nuzzling his neck, softly repeating his name.

"Yeah, so you should close your eyes and sleep some more." Suzuna said with a matronly air, waving her finger around as if she were presenting an undisputed fact.

"But... Aren't people worried that Shin will get sick by staying so close to me?" Sena shifted back a little on the bed, breathing a sigh of relief when Shin moved back a little to stare at him in concern.

"Not really, we figure he's developed a pretty good immune system. Plus, how do you propose we separate him from you, by force? His mother already tried that, and no one else is willing to follow in her footsteps."

"Oh no..." Sena murmured. "Did she... Did she try and take him away herself? Or did she try and get someone else to do it for her."

"Don't worry about that right now." Suzuna said, her expression not giving Sena any clue about the answer to his question. "Just go back to sleep."

Sena reluctantly did as he was told, a worried frown tugging at his lips.

The next time he awoke it was a bit more sudden than the last, he felt a little more aware of his surroundings than the first time and a little more energetic.

He slowly pushed himself into a seated positions, curiously looking at the foot of his bed where Shin rested his head on his folded arms.

'I guess that's as far away from me as Suzuna could get him.' He slipped out from under the blankets and stepped onto the cool floor a little unsteadily.

'Goodness, I feel really gross.' He wiped a hand across his forehead to try and rid himself of some of the sweat that clung to his body, but it hardly did anything to make him feel any cleaner.

The door creaked open and Suzuna peaked in, a smile flittering across her face when she saw Sena was up. She glanced about the room carefully and upon seeing Shin asleep at the foot of Sena's bed her eyebrows rose and her lips parted in a silent 'aww.'

After she pulled herself together she motioned Sena to follow her out of the room before pressing a finger to her lips and glancing at Shin, clearly not wanting the other boy to wake up.

Sena didn't need to be told twice.

He snuck out the room and into the hallway, slowly closing the door behind him.

"I figured you'd be all sweaty, so I thought I'd draw you a bath and wake you up for it." Suzuna whispered.

"Thanks, I feel pretty disgusting." Sena pulled at his nightclothes wearily. "I hope I don't smell too bad."

Suzuna choked back a laugh and covered her mouth with her hand for a moment before she was able to calm down.

"What's so funny?" Sena asked, eyebrows drawing together with worry. "I... I don't smell bad, do I?"

"No! No, it's just I thought it was kind of funny. Don't ask me why, it was just a spur of the moment thing or something." Suzuna grinned at him. "And once you have your bath you won't have to worry about how you smell, so let's get going before a certain someone wakes up, discovers you're not where you last were and decides to wreak havoc."

She lead him down the hallway towards the bathroom and was just about to open the door when a firm voice washed over them, beckoning them to turn around.

It was the lady of the house, her eyes dark and gloomy as she regarded them with an overall sombre expression.

"Seijuro, where is he?" She asked Suzuna who quickly answered that he was asleep.

"I see." Her right hand came up to rub against her left wrist gently and Sena wondered if it were a self-conscious gesture, or if there was a bruise hidden behind the fabric of her sleeves.

"My son has not had a bath since he first came to the house and he has become quite filthy from his... Romp through the forest."

"But ma'am..." Suzuna began uncertainly. "Last time he had a bath he was unconscious right? I'm not sure if he'll be... Easy to handle."

"Well, we have the person who can keep him calm right here, don't we?" Her eyes cooly moved to meet Sena's and the brunette found his eyes quickly darting away from the contact.

"Right, I suppose I'll go wake the young master up then." Suzuna curtsied before turning away, leaving Sena and Lady Shin alone in the hall.

"It has come to my attention that you keep calling my son by our family name." She began suddenly and Sena nodded to affirm the statement's truth. "I realize that you are doing what is proper for someone of low rank like yourself, but..." She paused for a moment and closed her eyes, wearily lifting a hand to her temples as if this conversation was entirely too taxing.

"Seijuro listens to you, and if you keep addressing him as 'Shin' he may come to think of that as his given name."

Her eyes flashed angrily for a moment as her hand dropped back down to her side and Sena took a small step back, feeling more than a little threatened by the look being sent his way.

She quickly regained her composure though and once again a look of cool detachment spread across her face.

"Call my boy by his given name from now until he comes to realize that Seijuro is his true name. Then you may go back to addressing him by the family name. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good."

With that she turned and walked in the direction from whence she came and Sena uneasily stepped into the bathroom.

'I suppose an invasion of my privacy is quite imminent then, isn't it?' He thought with a sigh as he stripped of his damp garments and stepped into the bathtub, unable to help the smile that was painted upon his lips when he caught sight of the bubbly surface of the water.

He slipped into the water and cupped his hands together, bringing some of the bubbles up to his face for closer inspection.

'They're really pretty.' He shifted his hands around, delighted to see the array of rainbow colours each clear bubble was gifted with.

He blew into his hands and watched them scatter, allowing himself to lean back and relax.

Then the door burst open.

He lifted his head, a bit startled but not entirely too surprised at the entrance, he sunk a bit further into the water for a bit more cover and waved a hand at Shin, just in case the other boy didn't notice him.

Shin smiled and waked towards the bath, crouching beside it curiously as he reached out a hand to touch the bubbles.

Suzuna followed after him and, without a shred of embarrassment, began taking off the nightshirt Shin had been forced into.

"S-Suzuna, what are you doing?" Sena asked after he'd covered his eyes, feeling himself blush when Suzuna laughed.

"What, you weren't thinking I would let him bathe with his clothes on did you? Besides, if I just think of him as an overgrown child it's not nearly as strange as it actually is."

There was a splash and Sena felt the water rising up.

"It's safe to look now, right?" He asked as he peaked through his fingers and brought his knees up to his chest so that he took up less room.

"Oh, it's a safe as it'll ever be." Suzuna replied as she dragged over a stood so that she could sit behind the curious Shin. "You just sit over on that end and I'll keep the young master over here as I give him a good scrubbing."

She rubbed something between her hands and began to rigorously knead Shin's scalp, causing the liquid to foam up at the friction.

In what seemed like minutes Shin was practically covered in sweet smelling bubbles which were everywhere but his face, which peered out from the mountain of foam with a dry expression.

Sena would have laughed at the sight, were it not that Shin had been staring at him the entire time in the same, slightly unnerving fashion.

"Well, I think that's about as much as he'll let me do." Suzuna said as she pulled away, shaking her hands a bit to dispel any lingering particles, and reached for a bucket of clean water, pouring it over Shin's head without any warning to rinse him off, thankfully not shocking him in the process.

"I'll go inform the lady of the house that her son is as clean as a whistle, you can stay in here as long as you like, but try to get out before the water gets cold, alright?"

"Yes Suzuna." Sena drawled as if he were addressing his overly concerned mother, shifting about listlessly when she exited the room.

As soon as the door clicked shut Shin began to move forward, albeit clumsily.

"Now then Shi- I mean, Seijuro." Sena began softly as he lifted up a leg to push the other boy away with his foot. "That's your side, this is my side, it would be best if you didn't come over to-" Sena flushed darkly and he stumbled around for a word. "... Explore."

If Shin was going to be as personal-space-invading as he had been when Sena's shirt was off, it would be better not to know how curious he was now that Sena wasn't wearing anything.

Shin curiously looked at the foot that was pressing against his chest and brought up a hand to take hold of it by the ankle.

"Shi-Seijuro, what are you-Wah!" Sena slid forward as Shin tugged on his leg and in an effort to get a little further away he brought up his other foot, once again bracing it against Shin's chest so he could push himself back.

"Oh no, this is my side, so I'm going to stay on my side." Sena lifted his hands to grip the rim of the tub so that, incase Shin wanted to tug on him again, he would stay in place.

"Heart." Shin said by, Sena supposed, way of explanation.

"Oh no, I know what else you went for when you were feeling my heartbeat." Sena quickly covered his chest with his arms and Shin continued to look at him curiously.

"Sena. Heart." Shin continued, letting go of Sena's ankle so that he could crawl forward.

Sena, not entirely in the mood for what was promising to be a somewhat violating confrontation, removed himself from the bath water as quickly as he could and wrapped a towel around himself, hopefully before Shin could realize he was indecent.

Shin himself began to stand up unsteadily, slipping around in a way that made Sena fear he was about to fall.

He reached forward and took Shin's arm in an attempt to steady him.

"Now slowly step out, slowly, be careful." Sena instructed Shin lowly as the older boy stepped out of the tub, looking down at himself in fascination as some of the bubbles clung to his skin.

The look of child-like wonder was enough to make Sena forget how embarrassing the situation was and instead smile brightly at it.

"Those are bubbles Sh-Seijuro." He began, slowly getting used to saying the older boy's given name. "Can you say bubbles?"

Shin gave him a blank look.

"Oh well, I suppose once that speech panthro- patho? Uh, specialist gets here you'll be able to say all sort of things anyways." Sena began conversationally as he grabbed a towel for Shin and began to conservatively dry him off. "But I wonder how long it will take for them to get here? You may be stuck with just me trying to teach you words for weeks." Sena chuckled nervously, the sound apparently was of a great interest to Shin, who lifted his hand to rest it against Sena's vocal chords.

Sena stopped not long after he had set out to investigate it though, so he sent him a look as if to say 'do that again.'

"Uh, faking laughter isn't really my specialty Seijuro." Sena meekly said, stepping away from the hand so he could, while looking at the wall to his side, wrap the towel around Shin's waist.

"Alright, I suppose now I've got to change into my pajamas..." Sena trailed off when he saw a set of clean clothes placed where he had set down his nightclothes.

"Suzuna's incredibly silent when she wants to be. Maybe she was an assassin in a past life or something." He pondered aloud, trying to keep himself from blushing as he wondered just when she had come back into the room.

He cleared his throat abruptly when that train of thought took a turn for the worse and instead picked up the shirt he'd been left and quickly pulled it over his head before turning back to Shin, who was tugging at the towel around his waist uncomfortably.

"If you had your way, you'd just run around naked all the time, wouldn't you?" The brunette asked with sigh, willing away the mental image that wormed it's way into his mind at the notion.

"Anyways, let's get some clothes on you before you catch a chill."

Once the both of them were decent Suzuna had come around to tell them that lunch was almost ready and the mention of food as enough to make Sena realize he was famished.

The last time he ate, well, he didn't really want to think about that. But it was a pretty long time ago.

He lead Shin down to the dining room where the lord of the house rose up to greet them.

"Sena, it's good to see you alive and well!" He exclaimed as he walked over to them, patting Sena on the back with an air of familiarity. "I must say, Seijuro was quite worried about you, it's nice to know there's someone he cares about, a link to our world, if you will."

Lady Shin discreetly coughed into her fist and her husband quickly changed the subject.

"I'm sure you're hungry after all that feverish sleeping you've gone through, now hurry on to the table, I've got some news to tell you."

Sena did as he was told and found him once again sitting beside Shin, who had been placed beside his mother.

"Now then, I've received a letter from the specialist Hiruma recommended, he said he'd be arriving within a day or two, weather permitting, and that he'd be bringing along someone who kept records of other 'feral children', figuring his accumulated knowledge on the matter may make teaching Seijuro easier."

"Well, that's very good news, sir."

"Indeed it is, but don't worry yourself with news, eat before you become weak and fall feint."

So Sena ate.

The rest of the day passed in a lazy sort of way, after lunch Sena had retired to his and Shin's room, with the older boy following him of course, and had, for lack of a better thing to do, tried teaching Shin a couple more words.

He'd begun by trying to teach Shin his name, pointing at him and saying: "Seijuro, Seijuro." over and over, but Shin seemed to think that Sena was referring to whatever body part that he'd be pointing to, so then he'd point out to Sena's chest and say: "Seijuro."

He'd quickly given up on that and, despite his better judgment telling him it would only bring trouble, had begun trying to teach Shin the names of body parts.

He had started with the hands, since the older boy had seemed quite interested in their hands when they had first met. So he had taken one of Shin's hands in both of his own, his fingers trailing over the palm and repeating the name until Shin repeated it as well, and then he moved on to each of the fingers and the thumb, doing the same as he had before.

Then they went over the arms, legs and chest, although Shin kept on wanting to call his entire chest his heart, and Sena wasn't quite sure how he could clear up that misunderstanding, so he decided to leave it for now.

Then he moved onto the face, and the touching began.

Throughout all of his explanations so far Shin had just sat beside him curiously and hadn't reached out to mirror Sena's gestures.

Maybe it was because, without the help of a looking glass, Shin was unable to see his own face and was using Sena's to make sure everything was correct. But even if that wasn't the case, it reminded him a lot of their first meeting.

First he had started with the ears, which hadn't been so bad since Shin was quite gentle when he gripped ahold of them. Then came the eyes, the nose and at last the lips.

The mouth was really, Sena supposed, his downfall.

Just as he had before Shin had traced Sena's lips with his thumb in a manner that Sena thought his mother would be quite furious with. And, while Sena had only just brushed over Shin's lips with the tips of his fingers before, Shin had enclosed Sena's hand in one of his own so that the contact was stronger.

"Lips. Sena lips." Shin all but whispered and Sena found himself blushing for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

"Yes, my lips. Sena's lips, because they belong to me. Sena's lips."

Shin had begun moving closer, well within Sena's personal space and ongoing without Sena really noticing until he could feel the puff of Shin's unsteady breathing against his face.

"Lips." Shin whispered again and Sena opened his mouth to say something, anything, but found that he was frozen in place.

Then came a knock at the door.

"Sena! Dinner's going to ready soon!" Suzuna called through the plank of wood and the sound of her voice allowed Sena to pull himself together and turn his head before anything potentially bad happened.

"W-we'll be out in just a while Suzuna, thanks!" He called back, mind racing.

How could all of that time pass by without him realizing it, it hadn't felt like he'd been sitting beside Shin, trying to teach him things for very long at all.

'Time flies when you're having fun.' A voice in his head informed him, but he quickly shook it away and looked over at the expectant Shin, still leaning close, his eyes still fixed on the bottom part of Sena's face.

"Well Seijuro, we'd better get going." He'd said nervously before standing up and making his way out of the room, Shin following after him gloomily.

He rushed through supper and was quick to get into bed that night, for a moment hoping that the small amount of distance Shin had given him while he was sick would hold up, but he had no such luck.

Shin, now that he knew Sena wouldn't be dying off any time soon, was back to his normal clingy ways when it came to going to bed.

At least he was warm though, that way Sena could just think of him as an especially nice blanket.

The next day just a little after lunch was when the carriage containing the speech pathologist and his companion arrived and at once Sena and Seijuro were gathered by the lord of the house to come and meet them.

They were both quite tall, which normally would have made Sena a little nervous, but neither of them bore a harsh expression and they both seemed very nice, so Sena found himself quite calm in their presence.

The older one introduced himself as Takami while the younger one, with his eyes glued to Shin the entire time, introduced himself as Sakuraba.

"Sakuraba has always been quite interested in this sort of thing, and there is no one in the world who has a better understanding of feral children, I believe with his help, as well as the co-operation of Sena, teaching your son will not be as difficult as one might think."

"And it's absolutely necessary that this 'feral child specialist' remain here?" Lady Shin drawled and Sakuraba flustered for a moment before pulling out a book.

"Well, Lady Shin, since I have studied over this sort of thing for many years I've come across many important things. Grammar for instance!"

"Grammar?"

"Yes! Usually if a child does not have a proper understanding of grammar as they enter childhood, while they will be able to learn words and associate objects with words, they will find it hard, if not impossible to communicate with others."

"Impossible? How do you mean?"

"Words are just words to them, they don't understand sentence structure, past and present tense and things like that." Sakuraba explained, trailing off before he seemed to realize something. "But while it would be hard for them to learn it later in life, that doesn't mean it's impossible for everyone!"

He opened up the book he'd been holding and flipped through a couple pages.

"There was a case in France, around 1731 where Marie-Angelique Memmie Le Blanc was found after surviving over ten years in the forests. She is one of the few who succeeded in a complete intellectual rehabilitation. She was found when she was nineteen, even older than your son and thus, more set in her ways then he would be. She lived a long, successful life. There was also a boy in Ireland who-"

Takami, with a wry smile at Sakuraba's excitement, lightly patted his shoulder to signal him to stop.

Sakuraba did so with a flush, closing his book and shifting self consciously .

Takami turned back to them, his smile not fading. "As you can see, I felt that with Sakuraba's help my teaching methods would become much more effective, I trust that he was convinced you likewise?"

"Indeed he has!" Lord Shin exclaimed as he clapped his hands together. "I am sure that under your guidance Seijuro will learn at an amazing pace." He stood up and shook hands with both of them excitedly.

"Now you must go and make yourselves known to him. Do not worry one bit though, raised by bears or not, he's always on his best behavior around Sena."

Sakuraba as the first to step towards the two boys.

"Um, is there anything I shouldn't do in front of him? Bear my teeth, look in his eyes?" He asked and Sena shook his head.

"No, at least, he's been fine with those things so far." Sena turned to look the at the boy sitting beside him, looking quite uncomfortable at being forced to stay still.

"Seijuro, this is Sakuraba, can you say that? Sakuraba. Sa-ku-ra-ba." Sena emphasized as he pointed to the young man in front of him.

"Saku... Raba." Shin repeated, eyebrows drawing together as he voiced the new word.

Sakuraba looked about ready to die from excitement while Lord Shin laughed heartily.

"Well, I suppose you two will need to settle in today. Tomorrow the lessons shall begin!"


	4. Chapter 4

FASH: Yay, time to start teaching Shin! I love writing his character so much, I just want to give him a bunch of hugs, or make Sena give him a bunch of hugs. For some reason though my chapters for this just seem to be getting a little shorter each time, I hope I don't make a habit out of that.

""-speech

''-thoughts

The following day Shin's lessons began. It had been difficult to keep him sitting still, despite Sena's constant attempts to keep him in place.

In fact, Sena got the feeling that after repeating the phrases so much when Shin started shifting about or his attention began to wander that he was actually was beginning to understand the meaning of "Sit still" and "Pay attention".

Understanding didn't help when he seemed unwilling to co-operate though, and Sena couldn't really prove that Shin knew what he was talking about anyways.

Takami and Sakuraba had been very understanding about everything though, and Takami had even allowed them to take multiple breaks to help with Shin's restless nature. But even after the chances to walk around and stretch his muscles out he still didn't seem very willing to try and learn, his attention always drifting to focus on something else, namely Sena.

"I'm sorry that he doesn't seem very interested, I'm sure once he gets into the swing of things he'll pay more attention!" Sena found himself saying on Shin's behalf.

"It's alright, we expected something like this to happen anyways." Takami replied with a kind smile. "Besides, I already how an idea on how to improve my lesson plans."

Sena blinked up at the young man curiously. "You knew this was going to happen?" He asked with no small amount of wonder in his voice, for the moment not noticing the almost jealous stare Shin seemed to be sending Takami's way.

"Well, in a way Shin is able to communicate: through body language. Since that's been the way he's always expressed himself, he probably doesn't understand or feel the need to communicate the way humans normally do. Right Sakuraba?"

"Huh? Oh, right!" Sakuraba agreed with a flush as he pulled his attention away from Shin's curious mannerisms.

"He doesn't want to learn? But he'll repeat things when I say them."

Takami's smile widened.

"And that point brings me to the improvements to be made in my lesson plan. As you've clearly noticed, Shin is attached to you, I believe he likes the idea of trying to communicate with you, but he doesn't necessarily care about anyone else. Which is why I'm going to need your help."

"My help?" Sena repeated incredulously, not entirely sure what he could possibly to do help.

"You're going to help me teach young Seijuro here, because he likes to listen to you and mimic you it would definitely make it easier for me to teach him if you helped out."

Sena blushed and nervously looked at Shin out of the corner of his eye. "Do you really think I could help?"

"Of course." Sakuraba stepped in, patting Sena's back in a friendly way until a low growl made him take a cautious step back.

"Y-you see, he must want to be able to communicate with you, and he must be frustrated that you can't seem to understand him sometimes, so you'd be the only reason he wants to be able to be able to speak and understand in the first place. Once he figures out that by learning what Takami teaches him he'll be able to communicate with you, we figure he'll start concentrating more."

During Sakuraba's mini-speech Shin had impatiently moved to Sena's side and began tugging on his arm in an attempt to steal his attention away from the older males, something that Takami noticed with a smile.

"How about we stop for now and start with a clean slate tomorrow? I'm not sure how much longer his attention span will hold out."

"Alright, I'll make sure Seijuro's interest is at it's peak for tomorrow!" Sena promised gallantly before taking Shin's hand and leading him out of the room.

"Maybe we can get a head start if I try teaching you more words. No more body parts though! Maybe this time I'll try and teach you things inside the house!" He excitedly continued as he dragged a quite willing Shin up the stairs towards their room.

Sakuraba ran a hand through his short crop of hair as he watched them go before turning to Takami.

"It's pretty interesting isn't it? I wonder how his attachment to Sena started off in the first place, I'm pretty sure it's not very common for them to take interest in one person while ignoring everyone else."

"Well, that's a mystery that can be solved another day."

Meanwhile up in their room Sena was vainly trying to make Shin repeat the word 'table' to him, but the other boy had ideas of his own.

"Lips." Was all he bothered saying, apparently wanting to continue on with what had almost started a couple days ago.

"No Seijuro, not lips. Table, this is a table. I know you can say it if you try!"

"Lips."

Sena sighed and slumped over. 'He's got such a one track mind, doesn't he?'

Needless to say all of his other attempts fell through and it wasn't long before he decided to give it a rest.

'But I must be on the right track, because Seijuro knows what he's saying when he refers to my lips. He's just completely uninterested in anything else.'

He really hoped Shin's interest in his lips would somehow dissipated during the night though, because it would be mortifyingly embarrassing if he were trying to help Takami teach and all Shin bothered to say was 'lips'.

That would probably bring up some rather unwanted questions.

In an effort to stop the problem before it started, because Sena highly doubted that Shin would just forget about something he seemed entirely too focused on, the following morning before going down to the lesson Sena confronted the other boy. Something that would have been a lot easier if Shin had a better grasp of language, but beggars can't be choosers.

"Alright Seijuro, today it's going to be very important that you sit still and pay attention." He began, being sure to look Shin in the eyes to show he was serious. "And since in order to pay attention you've got to stop focusing on my lips-"

Shin visibly perked up at the word and Sena steeled his nerves so that he wouldn't succumb to the urge to back away.

"I've got to make sure that you're not curious about them anymore, so..." Sena blushed hotly, closed his eyes and gave Shin a quick peck on the mouth.

"There, you can focus on other things now, right?"

Apparently not.

Shin stared at him with half-open eyes and slowly began moving in, repeating the word that Sena was starting to dread.

'Oh God, did I just make everything worse?!' He shifted back and raised up a hand to press against Shin's shoulder and hinder his progress.

Shin stopped and looked at him curiously.

"H-how about, if you're good during the whole lesson, I'll give you another kiss?" Sena asked, really hoping that Shin would just suddenly understand everything that he was talking about.

Shin just stared at him, confused.

"A kiss..." Sena began, trying to will the blush that had overtaken his face away. "A kiss, with lips."

"Lips." Shin repeated, moving in again, Sena's hand not nearly strong enough to stop him.

"No! _Nononono_!" Sena brought his other hand up to cover Shin's mouth and the older boy furrowed his eyebrows at him.

"You need to _sit still_ and _pay attention_ during your lesson." Sena said, stressing the words as much as he could, feeling somewhat better about the situation when Shin's eyes lit up with recognition.

"If you _sit still and pay attention_, then I'll give you a kiss, okay?"

Shin, although not nearly on his best behaviour, had improved a lot since yesterday's lesson, doing what Sena told him to do as best as he could.

The improvement was so noticeable, especially since Sena was no longer sitting beside him to keep watch over him, that Sakuraba was having a field day. He appeared to be excitedly studying Shin's behaviour, wondering what it was that got him to behave and throwing Sena curious looks.

'You can wonder as much as you want sir, but I'm not telling.'

Sena shuffled through the flip cards Takami had given him, each one had an object that they couldn't exactly bring into the room to show Shin realistically drawn onto it's surface.

"Ah, here's a good one." He held the card out in front of himself.

"Remember Sena, don't just say the word you want him to repeat, but also describe what it does." Takami told him and Sena nodded determinedly.

"Seijuro, this is a river, and rivers flow. Can you say river for me? River."

The first half of the day passed by in a similar fashion and after lunch Takami took over, to see if Shin would be willing to pay attention to him.

Shin, after Sena repeated to him that he needed to sit still and pay attention, thankfully did as he was told, although he didn't seem as eager to please.

As the lesson drew to and end Takami piled up all the cards they had used during the day and presented them one by one in front of Shin, tapping at the picture until Shin said something.

"It's to test his memory." Takami had explained while piling the cards together. "To see if his brain processes and collects the information, or if he just forgets it soon after. I'll start off with the ones we showed him during the second half of our lesson, which should be fairly easier for him to remember, then we'll move on and see if he can remember any of the one's from the first part."

Sena was fairly certain Shin would do well, but not to this extent.

Shin got every one right from Takami's part of the lesson, as expected, but then he went on to get all of the words right from Sena's part too.

Sena had never seen Sakuraba look so excited before, which was saying a lot considering how excited the young man became just by looking at Shin.

"Well, I'll have to go through them again tomorrow morning, but if his results then are anything like they are now, his memory is going to make a lot of things easier. Now then, class dismissed." He said jokingly.

"Thank you for your hard work, sir!" Sena said as he took Shin's hand and made his way out of the room.

Shin, apparently realizing that he no longer had to sit still and pay attention, quickly reverted back to his normal mindset.

Thankfully Sena had been dashing up the stairs at full speed and had locked Shin and himself up inside their room before Shin could even think of uttering the dreaded L word. And even as he began to say it in the privacy of their room Sena found himself covering Shin's mouth with his hand.

"I know what you're going to say, so you don't need to say it. I promised you a kiss, and a kiss is what you'll get."

Shin cocked his head to the side curiously and pulled Sena's hand away from his mouth.

"Kiss?"

"Yes, a kiss. You kiss with your lips." Sena replied, figuring if he was going to do this anyways, he may as well try and make it a learning experience.

He once again pressed their lips together for a fraction of a second before pulling away, leaving Shin with a distinctly unsatisfied look on his face.

"Now, now, don't give me that look. You'd feel strange about this too if you knew how, well, strange it was."

Shin's expression didn't change and Sena ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. "And, once you learn to speak properly, you'd better not tell the lady of the house about this, or she'll have my guts for garters..." Sena trailed off, another thought beginning to circulate in his mind.

"And you know, once you can speak you can tell me all about how you grew up. I've been curious about you since I first heard about you, you know. I've been asking unanswered questions about you for years. And you can tell me what it was like growing up with a mother bear-"

"Bear?" Shin suddenly repeated and Sena flinched a bit in surprise.

It was strange, he usually had to repeat a word several times for Shin to say it.

"Yes, because you grew up with a mother bear, right?" Sena asked cautiously, worriedly becoming aware than Shin was tensing up, as though he associated the word 'bear' with sinister actions and intentions.

In an effort to calm him down Sena awkwardly pulled the older boy into a hug and began to soothingly run his hands up and down his back.

"It's okay Seijuro, it's okay, you don't have to worry about anything. I'm here with you." Sena whispered lowly as he imitated the way his mother would calm him down when he was younger.

But Shin's obvious acknowledgement and dislike of the word 'bear' worried him, since he was fairly certain Shin hadn't picked the word up during his short stay at the house. And even if he did overhear some gossiping servants mention the word once or twice, surely it wouldn't have given him a reason to react the way he had.

Sena's embrace became a little tighter as he thought over the situation. He didn't know too much about bears, but he was fairly certain that they lived for a couple of decades at least.

When Shin had taken him into the forest he hadn't seen any bears, and he certainly hadn't seen Shin's mother bear.

'The hunters who used to always talk about him: the boy who was raised by bears, how could they believe in something like that without much evidence. They claimed they'd just caught glimpses of him, but what if they set up bear traps that caught his mother or...' Sena's thoughts trailed off as Shin began to relax in his embrace.

"Don't worry Seijuro, I'll always be here for you as long as you need me. Even if your mother doesn't like me very much." Sena vowed, tightening his arms once more before attempting to pull away only to find that Shin had decided to imitate his hugging.

Normally Sena would have at least attempted to worm his way out of the embrace, but he found he just didn't have the heart to at the moment.

"Sena." The older boy mumbled softly as he nuzzled his hair, sighing in contentment.

The brunette bit back a smile. "That's right Seijuro, Sena will stay with you for as long as you need."

-x-x-x-

Now that Takami and Sakuraba were around the weeks seemed to be flying by and it wasn't long before autumn was overtaken by winter's chill. And with winter came Sena's fifteenth birthday. His parent's had come over briefly to celebrate, since no one wanted Shin to have to wander off of the premises in case he felt like running off again. And several days after Sena's birthday came Christmas.

The Shin family always invited people over for a Christmas party, and although there was some concern regarding Shin being around strangers it was decided that the tradition should go on anyways.

So Sena had been ordered to keep Shin company in their room until it was late enough that, of the remaining guests, only ones who were as close as family or ones who actually were family remained.

It wasn't that bad though, and Sena had long since discovered that an easy way to pass the time with Shin was by trying to teach him.

The older boy was an incredibly quick learner whenever he put his mind to it, something that never ceased to amaze Sakuraba who was keeping a detailed journal of Shin's progress, or thrill Takami who was happy to have such a sharp pupil.

And thankfully Shin had become interested enough in learning that Sena had been able to stop bribing him to pay attention with kisses after the first several weeks. Although every once in a while after a particularly tough lesson that Takami and Sakuraba praised him for being able to complete he'd throw Sena a look as if he expected a kiss.

And by then he'd come to realize what a kiss was, so Sena would have to drag him away before he asked for one.

If he had been mortified at the thought of Shin saying 'lips' in front of Takami and Sakuraba, he'd possibly die from embarrassment if he asked for a kiss.

"Alright Seijuro, we've still got a bit of time until your mother and father said it would be okay to come downstairs. Is there anything else you'd like to do with me?" Sena asked, folding his hands together and placing them on his lap as he looked at the boy sitting beside him.

"Hands. Grasp." Shin replied, holding his hands out for Sena to inspect.

"You want us to..." Sena's eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Hold hands?" He questioned, lifting his own hands up.

Shin immediately placed their hands together, intertwining their fingers with a smile.

"You don't really get tired of this do you? Do you have an obsession with anyone else's hands that I should know about?" Sena laughed a bit before his attention was drawn away from Shin by a dull thud in the hallway.

"Hmm, I wonder what that was?" Sena rose up off of the bed and crept towards the door, opening it just a fraction to see what had caused the noise.

His eyes widened and his cheeks grew pink from what he saw.

Sakuraba had been all but pinned to the wall while Takami was doing something that, had Sena been younger and a little more naive, would have looked like some sort of vampire impersonation.

He slowly shut the door and turned around, jumping a bit when he saw Shin had managed to silently sneak up behind him.

"Downstairs?" Shin asked as he reached past Sena to grab the door handle, but the brunette quickly grabbed his wrist and shook his head.

"No, we're still not going downstairs for a while yet Seijuro." Sena managed to say without stammering, his thoughts unwillingly beginning to drift back to what he'd seen in the hallway.

He certainly hadn't expected anything like that. He'd always thought of Takami as asexual and, despite Sakuraba's infatuation with Shin, he'd always thought the light haired man got along well with the ladies.

'I'd better make sure we stay inside until they leave the hallway. If Seijuro sees that...' Sena blushed hotly, not entirely sure he wanted to know what would happen if Shin saw any public displays of affection.

He waited for another fifteen minutes, just to be completely safe, before opening the door again and leading Shin downstairs to where the party was being held.

As expect most of the guests had already left so they could make it home before it got too late, all the other guests would be staying overnight in the spare rooms.

"Ah, there he is! Our strapping young son, Seijuro, and his best friend, Sena!" Lord Shin announced loudly once he noticed their presence.

As one the remaining group of people turned to stare openly at them and Sena felt himself shrinking back from the attention.

Lady Shin strode forward and took Shin's hand, smiling lightly when he didn't pull away or glower at her as he was sometimes wont to do.

Then her gaze shifted over to Sena and the brunette felt a shiver run down his spine at the hardly concealed malice in her eyes.

His continued presence around her son seemed to be a constant annoyance to her, so he wasn't too surprised when she curtly thanked him for bringing her son down before suggesting that he go back to bed.

"Come on my dear, it's Christmas, surely the boy can stay up for a little longer during the holidays." Lord Shin had countered merrily. "Besides, Sena's going to be visiting his family for the whole day tomorrow, let the boys spend a little more time together."

"If you insist, dear." His wife had replied gracefully before tugging on Shin's hand, her smile fading when he didn't follow her.

"Come on, darling, I'm going to introduce you to a lot of interesting people. Don't you want to meet them?"

Shin stayed put, turning his head to look at Sena briefly.

"Yes, Sena will be coming around with us too, so please be a good boy and do as your mother asks, Seijuro."

This time when she tugged on his hand he moved forward. No one commented on how Sena had started walking in the direction Lady Shin had been trying to guide her son seconds before her pulling.

She went around he room, showing her son off to many friends before she finally came across a relative.

"Seijuro, this is your father's cousin, Lord Rodchenko. He's a very busy man, so he doesn't visit often." She said as they came to a stop in front of a very strong, slightly familiar looking man.

"Ah, so this is the boy everyone's been talking about." The man before them smiled in a way that made Sena feel nervous, like he was just baring all his teeth without a thought of good intentions.

Shin appeared to feel that way too, because he growled lowly in his throat at the sight.

"Seijuro!" His mother looked aghast for a moment before she turned to glare at Sena. "I thought I told you to make him stop making such barbaric noises!"

"It's okay, it must be habit since he was raised in the wild and all." Rodchenko waved a hand in a dismissive fashion, smile still wide and challenging. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and ask my cousin about something." He moved away, easily ignoring the dirty look Shin was sending his way.

Sena, not wanting to spend even another minute of time in a room with someone who gave him such a bad feeling, quickly excused himself from the party and made his way to bed. And, as he half expected, Shin followed him up not long after.

That night he was roused from his sleep for seemingly no reason. He thought he heard the slight creak of his door shutting, but he sleepily concluded that it was just the wind or the house itself creaking before snuggling back into the warmth of Shin's chest.


	5. Chapter 5

FASH: Merry belated Christmas! Sorry I updated this a bit late, but as you can imagine I've had a lot of running around to do around Christmas, mostly going up to visit family that I can't write around for fear of them seeing what exactly I do with my free time.

""-speech

''-thoughts

The following morning Sena had woken up, had somehow managed to convince Shin to let him go and had tucked the older boy back in bed and told him to go to sleep.

He made sure to thank the powers that be when Shin did as he asked without too much fuss.

Christmas with his family wasn't all too different from the norm, although he did find himself speaking up more than usual to answer his mother's questions about how everything was going. He had half expected that though, since she and his father hadn't been able to stick around for too long on his birthday and they didn't see him very often anymore.

After diner he made his way back to the Shin household, shivering a bit as the cold invaded his personal space, easily slipping through the fabric of his coat and clothes to clutch at his skin.

He arrived at the front door and reached for the handle, thoughts of a warm atmosphere and a pile of several soft blankets already filling up his mind.

The door was opened just as his fingers had touched the metal and he found himself looking up at a rather enraged looking Lady Shin.

"Ma'am? Is something wrong?" He asked cautiously, taking a step back as she stepped out of the house, silently closing the door behind her. "Ma'am?"

"Why yes, something is wrong." She said darkly as she glared down at him. "Do you want to know what's wrong, Sena?" She reached out one hand to grip at his shoulder while the other held on to his jaw, forcing him to keep looking up at her.

"You were sleeping in the same bed as my son!" Her grip on his jaw and shoulder became tighter as she hissed her answer out at him.

"Ma'am, I can explain! Seijuro likes-"

"Seijuro doesn't know what to like! He doesn't know what he's doing is wrong, but you do, and you let it go on! Well not any more." Her hands moved to grip the front of his jacket and Sena felt himself being lifted up off of the ground so that he was eye to eye with the lady of the house.

"I can't do much to you, any sort of discipline I'd like to dish out would be noticed and then I'd be seen as the immoral prat. But as Seijuro's mother I can't allow him to be taken advantage of by the likes of you which is why, effective immediately, you are no longer to share a room." She pulled him a bit closer, staring him down like some sort of poisonous snake that was about to strike.

"And once Seijuro begins to behave himself without your influence, I'm going to send you away and he'll never see you again."

She unclenched her hands and dropped him to the ground, watching with a small amount of satisfaction as he stumbled to try and regain his balance.

She took his hand in her, now familiar, vice-like grip and lead him back inside the house and up the stairs, turning right instead of left at the top, apparently set on having Sena and her son as far away as possible.

But not everything was going her way. Just before she and Sena disappeared down the hallway Shin walked into the main foyer, caught sight of Sena and was bounding up the stairs excitedly before his mother could successfully pull the brunette out of sight.

She rushed down to the end of the hallway and opened the door on the left side, pushing Sena in quickly and locking the door behind him.

Sena rubbed at his hand where she'd been holding him gently, he wouldn't be entirely surprised if he ended up with some light bruises.

'So I guess that sound I heard last night was the door shutting after all.' He slumped against the door, half listening to the voices outside as Lady Shin tried to convince her son that Sena was still at his parent's house.

'It's a bit strange though, that she'd wait until now to toss me into a separate room when she could have just dragged me away last night, unless...' Sena flushed lightly.

Unless someone else had come in to check up on them during the night and had let the fact that Shin and Sena shared a bed slip out in front of the lady of the house.

Sakuraba might have, he was always so interested in Shin's mannerisms and such that it wouldn't surprise Sena if he felt like checking up on his sleeping habits.

"How embarrassing." Sena murmured to himself as he pressed an ear against the door, wondering if the mother and son were still just outside.

They were, and by the sound of things Shin wasn't going to be leaving any time soon.

"Sena? Is internal?" He called out as he began knocking on the door, beginning to sound a little panicky.

Sena, not wanted the older boy to worry about him, answered back.

"Yes Seijuro, I'm inside."

Shin took hold of the handle and tried opening the door, despite the way his mother was asking him to stop. "Sena escape room?"

"I'm sorry Seijuro, but I can't."

"Can't?" Shin parroted, his efforts to open the door put on hold for a moment.

"Cannot. I'm not allowed."

Well, apparently Shin didn't like that answer one bit because it took him all of three seconds to make sense of Sena's reply before banging on the door, harder this time. Sena stepped away from the wooden barrier when he heard it begin to creak, his mouth parting to form words of reassurance that he found he couldn't remember.

Lady Shin was practically having kittens by the sound of it, demanding and pleading that he stop before he injured himself.

When the wood on his side of the door started to splinter, signalling that it wouldn't be too long before Shin managed to break through, Sena decided it was high time he tried to calm the other boy down.

Out of habit, perhaps, the first words out of his mouth were: "Seijuro, sit still and pay attention." But it appeared to work because the door pounding stopped.

"Seijuro, don't worry about me. Go to your room and go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning." He said as calmly as he could.

"The morning? Promise?" Shin asked, for some reason sounding nearly heartbroken that he'd have to be away from Sena for an entire night.

"I promise."

Outside he could hear Lady Shin beginning to lead her son away to the other side of the house. For a moment he wondered if he should feel slightly insulted that she appeared to be under the belief that he was somehow taking advantage of her son. Especially considering that, despite it not really being 'taken advantage of', it was the other way around.

Not that he'd tell her that though, she'd probably destroy him for 'lying' to her.

"Boy, Seijuro really did a number on this door." Sena took a good look at the splintering mess in front of him, the doors in the Shin household were generally quite solid and thick.

"It's a good thing he didn't decide to attack me the first time we met, I might have died." He chuckled to himself nervously before preparing for bed.

That night seemed especially cold and although he tried to tell himself that it wasn't due to the lack of Shin's body heat, he found he didn't quite believe himself.

The following morning almost as soon as he made his was downstairs he found himself being swept up by a pair of familiar arms, pressed back into a familiar broad chest. He felt himself becoming a little uncharacteristically giddy at the embrace, maybe because he'd been unable to get his daily dose of Seijuro-Affection yesterday.

The feeling was quickly stomped down when Lady Shin came into the foyer, paused, positively glowered at him before snappily ordering him to get to breakfast and disappearing back around the corner.

Sena would like to know how she came to the conclusion that he was responsible for the hug he was obviously on the receiving end of. But since he doubted he'd get a plausible answer if he asked he just tilted his head back to catch the other boy's attention.

"Sena." Shin looked quite pleased with himself for some reason and Sena took a moment to ponder why before he felt something press against his forehead.

Shin's lips were pressed against his forehead. Sena wondered if this was an opportune moment to panic.

For Shin to know that he could kiss Sena on places other than his lips meant that Shin must have seen a similar public display of affection. If Shin saw something like a kiss being done in public, then he'd probably assume it was okay for him to do similar things in public instead of, say, a closed room.

This situation had Not Good written all over it.

As Sena stood still, brain working a mile a minute, Shin had gone back to nuzzling his hair. It was only when Suzuna came across them that Sena was able to force his body to slip out of Shin's embrace.

Suzuna flashed them an impish smile. "Well, I was told to gather you two up for breakfast, but if there are other, more interesting-"

"No, we were just on out way!" Sena cut in, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks as he strode forward, Shin following after him.

The morning lessons went on normally, although Sena kept a careful eye on Shin to make sure he didn't bypass the level of affection he normally showed. Thankfully though, when Shin focussed on something as hard as he had come to focus on his studies very little could distract him. Of course once the lessons were over for the day Shin was back to his normal, infatuated Sena following until the time came for them to go into their separate rooms.

At first Shin couldn't seem to figure out why Sena wanted to go off in the opposite direction that they normally went at the top of the stairs, then he must have remembered what had happened yesterday.

"No." He said stubbornly, pulling Sena along to their old room quite effectively no matter how hard Sena tried to pull himself in the opposite direction.

"But Seijuro, your mother doesn't want me to go in there anymore!" Sena tried to dig his heels into the floor to slow down Shin' progress, but his efforts appeared to not affect Shin at all.

"No." He repeated and Sena desperately tried to think of a solution for this problem.

"Um, can't we just-"

"No."

Sena pouted and wondered who he should thank for teaching Shin that miserable word. Probably himself, but he didn't want to dwell on that.

The brunette's mind was still whirring with thought by the time Shin pulled him into their old room and shut the door, though he couldn't seem to think of anything that might help him. It was strange though, Shin had seemed, well, a little depressed, but over all he'd been willing to be separated from Sena the night before. Maybe it was because Sena had already been inside the other room? Although Shin didn't seem to have any qualms about breaking the door down until Sena had told him to stop.

Shin stubbornly seated himself on Sena's bed and gave him a look, as it to say: I dare you to try and leave.

"Seijuro, you're going to make me get into trouble with your mother." Sena sighed and ran a hand through Shin's hair, smiling slightly when the older boy relaxed at the contact.

"Stay here, okay? And I will see you in the morning, I promise." Sena turned to go leave the room but was suddenly tugged back and practically toppled over into Shin's arms.

"Seijuro, I-" Sena was abruptly cut off when Shin firmly pressed their lips together, far more like a kiss than any of the short pressing together of the lips Sena had bestowed upon him.

And with the kiss came the giddy feeling once more, although Sena tried his best to ignore it.

When Shin finally pulled away Sena found himself to be in a bit of a daze, although he tried to convince himself it was from shock and not for any other reason.

"Well, uh... I'll see you in the morning, I promise... Be a good boy!" He'd managed to say before quickly sprinting out of the room, vaguely wondering if all of his night were going to end similarly to this.

Thankfully Shin grew more accustomed to the idea of sleeping by himself and had only tried dragging Sena back to their old room a couple more times before he became accustomed to saying his goodnights at the top of the stairs.

And time wore on as it was wont to do, with Shin learning more each day, Sena and Sakuraba watching contentedly from the sidelines as Takami worked his magic.

It wasn't until late spring that anything notably interesting happened, when two letters arrived on the same rainy day. One from Lord Rodchenko, inviting the family over to his manor to catch up and repay them for their hospitality on Christmas. The other was from Hiruma, saying that he would be coming back in about a week to check up on everything, as he had promised he would.

Lord Shin, eager to see his cousin again, immediately wrote up a letter saying that they'd be more than happy to impose upon his hospitality and began preparing for the trip. He had decided that it would be best not to bring his son along, fairly certain that he wouldn't be able to handle the sudden journey in a carriage.

And so the Lord and Lady left a couple days later, being sure to remind everyone that if Hiruma arrived ahead of time he should be welcomed with open arms.

Once their carriage had disappeared from sight Sena had felt a little relieved. With Lady Shin gone for several days he didn't need to worry so much about about being glared at for things he couldn't control. And although if Shin noticed him feeling so relaxed he might come to be under the impression that he could be more affectionate than usual, it wasn't as if Sena hadn't grown accustom to his attachment.

'I've probably grown too used to it though.' Sena ran a hand through his hair and glanced at the boy beside him. 'He really doesn't seem to be the affectionate type.' He turned to go back inside.

"You know what we should do?" Sakuraba asked suddenly and Sena jumped a little at the sudden question.

"Uh, no?"

"We should take Seijuro out on a walk! It's not good for him to stay cooped up inside all the time and I don't think he's going to try and run away again." Sakuraba rubbed his chin and nodded to himself. "I'll ask Takami if he wants to come along, you two wait out here!" Sakuraba rushed into the house excitedly, drawing his companion out a few moments later.

"Will we just be making our way around the grounds then, or did you want to venture a little further?" Takami asked as he cast a curious glance up at the rather cloudy sky. "It won't be good if it starts pouring and we end up getting soaked before we can make it back inside."

"A little water isn't going to hurt us Takami, besides, we don't have to go far." Sakuraba responded with a small smile, the back of his hand lightly brushing over Takami's, fingers twitching slightly.

Sena quickly blinked and turned around, grabbing onto Shin's hand as he began leading him away from the house. "Well, let's get moving." He said without turning back, although he was slightly curious to see if Sakuraba had grabbed onto Takami hand as well.

They walked around the property until a light rain began to fall and Takami forced them to turn back around, warning them about catching a chill in an older brother sort of way.

Sakuraba, although a bit downhearted at the weather, made them all promise to go back out on a nicer day.

Sena briefly wondered if this was what having siblings was like before Suzuna came up to them all with a pile of towels and a knowing look, telling them to dry their hair off in the kitchen.

Sena had been drying Shin's hair off with one of the towels when a thought struck him.

"Takami, sir, Hiruma is the one who recommended you for this job, right?" He asked curiously and Takami nodded. "How is it that you know each other?"

"We're distantly related, although I can't recall how, we also grew up in the same town."

Sena's eyes widened slightly. "Really, you don't look or act anything like each other."

Sakuraba let out a soft: "Thank goodness." At that comment and Takami smiled lightly.

"Well, Hiruma was always fairly... Devious, I suppose. And sometimes a bit too smart. I believe his father was trying to get him to become a doctor, but he said that tracking was more fun, and that was that."

"He's a pretty interesting guy." Sena gave Shin's hair one final ruffle before pulling the towel away.

"Interesting is one way to put it, I suppose." Sakuraba spoke up with a nervous smile. "Sometimes it feels like he can see all your secrets. I've only met him once, he makes me skittish."

Takami chuckled lowly and patted Sakuraba's shoulder, leaving his hand there for several moments longer than necessary.

'He can see all your secrets, huh?' Sena contemplated that for a moment and his cheeks went a faint pink. 'I certainly hope he can't. It was embarrassing enough when he was around, telling me to feed Seijuro in that way and saying that it wasn't as if I was kissing him. I can't even begin to imagine how mortifying it would be if he found out that there were times when I've actually kissed Seijuro.'

At least he wasn't alone in the need to hide things from the omnipotent tracker.

Shin, clearly bored just sitting around doing nothing, hand taken the liberty of grabbing onto Sena's hand and starting to drag him away while the brunette was worrying over the Hiruma issue.

"Ah, Seijuro, why are you dragging me around?" Sena asked as he was pulled out of the kitchen and Shin turned to him, his eyes gleaming in a rather predatory fashion.

"Bath."

"Huh? Bath?" Sena cocked his head to the side. "You want to take a bath?"

"Bath. With Sena." Shin replied, watching curiously as Sena's face turned several different shades of red.

"No, we don't need a bath Seijuro, we'll be fine without one. So no."

Shin, apparently not in the mood to take no for an answer, continued pulling him along anyways.

"Seijuro!" Sena whined. "If I didn't know any better I'd think you were a pervert."

"Yaa!" Suzuna exclaimed as she appeared out of thin air beside Sena, nearly giving the boy a heart attack. "What's this I hear about the young master being a pervert?"

"S-Suzuna! Don't sneak up on me like that." Sena managed to say before Shin began tugging his hand once again, moving into the foyer. "Distract Seijuro or something so I can free my hand."

"Why?" Suzuna asked curiously, calmly walking alongside the pair. "The young master probably thinks that if you get to drag him around every once in a while, then he can do the same for you."

Sena opened his mouth to complain but was interrupted by a knock on the door and Suzuna dutifully went over to answer it.

"Elf bro!" She called joyfully upon seeing who was on the other side and Sena could feel a shiver crawl up his spine.

'Elf bro is what she calls Hiruma.'

"Come in, come in! I'll get you a towel so you can dry your hair!" She chirped merrily as Hiruma stepped inside.

Shin, upon seeing Hiruma's familiar face, seemed to grow a bit more serious and he tugged Sena closer to him, resting his chin on top of the younger boy's head and enfolding him in his arms protectively.

"Thanks." Hiruma answered before Suzuna dashed off, his eyes drifting over to land on Shin and Sena, a smirk quickly growing on his face.

"Well, look what we have here. Surely after the months he's been out of the wild he doesn't feel the need to hold onto you like that anymore."

"O-only around you Hiruma, sir." Sena responded back faintly as he wondered what could possibly have gotten into Shin.

"Well, I suppose it makes sense, he may think that I'm here to take him away again." Hiruma responded with ease. "Although if he's that worried he must be especially attached to you. I wonder why that is?" His smirk widened and Sena felt himself shrinking back into Shin's embrace, in response Shin tightened his arms around him even more.

'He can't really see all our secrets, right?'

"Anyways, where's the little monster's parents?" Hiruma asked, thankfully moving away from the previous topic.

"Oh, well, since they thought you'd be coming a little later in the week they went on a little trip." Sena replied and Hiruma cursed lightly.

"I suppose that's what I get for finishing a job early. Mind telling me where they went and how long they'll be gone?"

"They went to visit Lord Shin's cousin. His name was Lord Rod... Something."

"Rodchenko." Hiruma supplied, his eyes narrowing slightly as he said the name.

"Yes, that was his name." Sena responded slowly, curious as to why Hiruma seemed to dislike the aforementioned man. He had half a mind to ask about his abhorrence, but before he could Suzuna came back with another dry towel, Takami and Sakuraba following after her.

'I'll ask him about it later.' Sena told himself, fingers tapping idly on the strong arms encircling him. 'But first things first, how do I get Seijuro to let me go?'


	6. Chapter 6

FASH: Man, I was forced to clean my room the other day and I had no idea how much stuff had ended up under my bed over time, it was pretty amazing. Anyways, since I'm probably boring you with my idle chatter... HAPPY NEW YEAR!

""-speech

''-thoughts

Hiruma wasted no time in making himself at home and had changed into a dry pair of clothes and sprawled himself out on one of the couches in the drawing room before Sena could manage to worm his way out of Shin's hug.

And, of course, Hiruma noticed that.

"Well, well." The blonde clucked his tongue lightly. "Either he still hasn't become used to anyone except you, or he really likes you."

Sena laughed nervously and finally managed to free himself from Shin's iron grip. "It's just like how you said before. He must just be worried that you're here to take him away. You make him nervous."

And the youngest Shin wasn't the only one affected by the tracker's presence.

"Of course I was right." Hiruma said with a smirk.

Shin growled lowly in response.

"Seijuro, don't be so impolite." Sena reprimanded half-heartedly, sighing when in response Shin grabbed onto his hand and began dragging him away.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Hiruma felt the need to say in a sing-song voice as Sena was towed out of the room.

'How am I supposed to know what you wouldn't do?' Sena thought to himself wildly for a moment. 'Not that I care or anything.'

And really, if Shin set his mind on doing something, then there was probably very little Sena could do to take his mind off of it and oppose him, aside from asking him to. One of the many disadvantages of being physically smaller than most people his age.

As they made their way to the foyer they passed by Sakuraba and Takami. The light haired man reminded them that the lesson would be starting up soon while Takami smiled down at them, his glasses glinting in an all-knowing fashion.

Sena just pretended he didn't see that, he didn't need two people getting him all nervous, thinking they could read his mind.

After Shin had dragged him a 'safe' distance away he turned back to the brunette worriedly.

"Sena are staying?"

"Yes Seijuro, Sena is staying." The brunette assured him before a thought struck him. "Why didn't you talk at all around Hiruma?"

Really, with Shin's borderline possessive nature regarding him, Sena was half surprised that he hadn't said something along the lines of: "Mine!" when he'd trapped Sena in his embrace. Of course, it was probably, no, _definitely_ a good thing he didn't do that. He didn't need Hiruma figuring things out before Sena could find a way to hide them.

"Hiruma?" Shin questioned darkly, his grip on Sena's hand tightening.

"Yes Hiruma. He's not a bad guy, he's just a bit..." Sena trailed off, unsure how to describe the lithe blonde. "... Strange is all."

Shin grumbled in response, clearly not pleased that Sena seemed to be taking Hiruma's side.

"Oh, don't be like that." Sena chided lightly. "He's got to be nice, otherwise Suzuna wouldn't be so cheery around him. I think."

"Capture." Shin mumbled, sending a sharp look in the direction from whence they came.

"Yes, well... If he hadn't captured you and taken you back here, you wouldn't have met me." Sena brightly stated. "And now isn't the time to sulk Seijuro, we've got to go back for your lesson!" He tugged at Shin's hand in a futile effort to get him moving. Shin was as stubborn as a mule when he was set on something, and apparently he was set on staying out of Hiruma's range of sight at all times.

"Come on, now is not the time to turn into some immovable mountain." Sena said with a final tug before giving up.

"Sena likes Hiruma?" Shin questioned, his grip tightening just enough to be a little uncomfortable.

"Well, uh, I suppose I do." Sena answer uncertainly and Shin frowned, so in an effort to rectify the situation Sena quickly blurted out: "But I like you more!"

Shin's frown abruptly disappeared, as though it had never been there at all, and he looked down at Sena almost shyly.

"Seijuro likes Sena." The older boy admitted and Sena wondered if he meant that in a friendship sort of way or not.

He didn't have much time to wonder over it though, as Takami was calling their names and telling them that Shin's lesson was due to start.

Oddly enough it was Shin who now dragged Sena into the room Takami, Sakuraba and Hiruma were occupying. Perhaps not as worried about Hiruma now that he knew Sena was fonder of him than the blonde. Which was a good thing, wasn't it?

The lesson drew on, Hiruma watching from a corner silently in an almost unnerving way until Takami decided they'd all had enough for one day.

Outside the rain was coming down harder than ever, beating down upon people who hadn't brought an umbrella as they left the manor for the evening. It made Sena kind of happy he didn't have to walk home anymore, although he did hope that his mother had forced his father to bring his umbrella, as his father usually didn't worry about that sort of thing.

"Well, isn't this a fine day?" Hiruma said to himself, sarcasm nearly tangible as he looked out the window. "It had better not be like this for the rest of the week, I'll get cabin fever." He stared up at the sky in an almost threatening way, as if he could scare the clouds off by glaring at them.

That actually wouldn't surprise Sena much, Hiruma was already fairly supernatural in his eyes, making him have control over the weather wouldn't be much of a leap.

Suzuna, apparently in an attempt to rid everyone of their boredom, had gathered them all up into the drawing room and had asked Hiruma to tell him all about his latest job.

"How did you finish it off so fast? Everyone thought you wouldn't be here for another four or five days!" She queried brightly and Hiruma smirked.

"Well, it all started when about a month ago I got a letter..."

Hiruma went on with his stories for quite a while before the topic of conversation was changed to be focused on Shin's studies and how he was progressing.

Sena had begun tuning the voices out by that point, focussing more on the light pitter-pattering of the rain as it began to slow down and how Shin liked to rub his fingers along the back of his hand.

It grew darker and darker, even as the rain clouds began to drift out of sight, but still the conversation went on. Sena wasn't even too sure what everyone was talking about anymore, although every once in a while he could hear Suzuna giggle and whisper something along the lines of 'so cute'.

He just tried to ignore that the comment was probably directed at him.

They had been sitting around and talking for a long while, long enough that Sena was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open and his head kept on tilting to rest on Shin's shoulder, no matter how many times he tried to keep it straight. Suzuna would giggle in his direction every once in a while and coo at him in a way he couldn't entirely ignore, and for some reason Sakuraba was jotting stuff down in his journal at the speed of light.

Sena had just about dozed off when a noise from upstairs startled him into wakefulness.

Hiruma threw a suspicious glance at the ceiling before his eyes drifted over the other occupants of the room.

"Sounds like something fell over." He commented lightly. "Strange, since the only ones who are currently supposed to be inside this house are in this room." His eyes flickered over to Takami who gave a curt nod before the both of them sprung up from their chairs and began heading out of the room.

"Elf bro, where are you going!" Suzuna asked worriedly. "If someone came inside the house to get upstairs we would have heard them pass by!"

"Not if they're a good climber." Hiruma replied before he and Takami disappeared out the door.

Sakuraba coughed into his fist and began fiddling with his notebook nervously. "Well then, I suppose we all should just-"

He abruptly stopped when he heard a shout and leapt out of his seat. "I'll go see what's up, you three wait here!" He yelled as he left the room, leaving the youngest three to worriedly bite their nails, try and calm their breathing and stare at the wall in boredom.

"Sena, this isn't going to be like one of those murder mysteries or something is it?" Suzuna asked lowly and Sena, not trusting himself to speak, shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe we should move to a room where we can lock the door?" Suzuna mumbled to herself as she stood up, silently making her way to the door.

"But Sakuraba told us to stay here." Sena whined and Shin, finally seeming to notice Sena's discomfort, wrapped his arms around him and pulled the smaller boy towards his chest.

Suzuna rolled her eyes and reached for the door, not expecting it to open just as she touched the handle.

She flinched a little from the shock, but was quick to control herself when the three young men strolled in, Hiruma cursing under his breath.

"It seems an intruder was able to break his way in via Seijuro's bedroom window." Takami explained when he saw two identical curious looks being sent their way. "He seems to have knocked over the clock on the dresser, which was the noise that we heard earlier. He ran back into Seijuro's room and out the window once he saw Hiruma and I coming up the stairs."

"And it's too God-damn dark to try and track him right now." Hiruma mumbled flatly, clearly not happy with the turn of events. "First thing tomorrow morning I'm gonna hunt that mother fucking-"

"Hiruma! Not in front of the children!" Sakuraba interrupted aghast and the shorter blonde sent him a look.

"Oh come on, I'm sure they've heard worse. In any case, the rain we've had earlier will have made the soil softer, easier to read." Hiruma smirked darkly at this. "Even with a head start of several hours, I'm going to catch up easily."

Hiruma exuded confidence as he said this and Sena had no doubt that he was telling the truth.

"Well, I think it would be best if we all went to bed, we've already had a pretty long night." Takami said, taking off his glasses to rub at his eyelids wearily.

"But what if he comes back? And what if he gets in through Seijuro's room again?" Sena asked worriedly and Hiruma snorted.

"I doubt they'd be stupid enough to come back, especially on the same night, when they know they were discovered the first time."

Sena didn't look relieved by the information at all.

"Fine, you two lovebirds can stay in here for the night."

"L-lovebirds?" Sena repeated with a blush.

"Don't go into cardiac arrest on me, shrimp." Hiruma rolled his eyes.

"Aw, I want to stay in here too then." Suzuna said with a pout. "Can I stay too?"

"Yes! Fine! Now get some blankets, get comfortable and get to sleep!" Hiruma commanded before storming out of the room, Takami and Sakuraba following after him after bidding the other three goodnight.

Suzuna scurried off in search of extra blankets, and Sena was already asleep by the time she returned.

The following afternoon Sena slowly opened his eyes, squinting uncomfortably as light invaded his retinas.

Well, he'd made it through the night without getting stabbed, that was a good sign.

He shifted awkwardly as he pulled down the blanket that had been thrown over him and shimmied out of the still sleeping Shin's embrace. Then he cautiously tip-toed out of the room, carefully not to wake the other two occupants.

The house appeared to be completely empty except for Shin, Suzuna and himself, which probably meant that Takami and Sakuraba had decided to join Hiruma on his quest to find whoever had broken in last night.

'Hiruma is kind of like a detective, when you think about it.' The thought made Sena grin, as he now had an interesting image of Hiruma smoking a pipe and deducing things.

The front door slammed open and in stalked Hiruma, somehow managing to angry and happy at the same time.

"Hiruma, sir, how's the search going?" Sena asked curiously as Hiruma walked passed, briefly waving at Sena in a motion the brunette assumed meant 'follow me'.

"It's a bit of a challenge, since the guy who managed to break in apparently had a horse tied up to one of the fences just off of the grounds. Judging by the tracks it was a pretty decent sized horse too, probably nice and fast, perfect for a quick gettaway. And a couple people said they had seen a stranger in town yesterday, with a strange looking horse."

"Strange? How so?"

"It had a black spotted pattern, like a leopard."

"Oh." Sena respond, his tone seeming to imply 'that's not strange at all'.

Hiruma swivelled to him, eyebrows raised.

"Do you know something about this spotted horse?"

"It's probably and Appaloosa, it's a horse breed best known for being spotted and having striped hooves."

"Oh? As expected of a stable boy of the Shin family I suppose." Hiruma grinned down at him. "Do you know if your bosses own any of those types of horses? Or anyone else in town?"

"They had one a couple years ago I think, but not anymore. And I haven't been in town very recently, but if everyone seemed to think it was strange to see an Appaloosa, then I'd suppose no one in town owns one." Sena said with a shrug before becoming curious. "Why is it so important that we know what type of horse it is?"

"Because, we need to put the pieces of the puzzle together." Hiruma replied, grin widening as he entered the kitchen.

"Takami and Sakuraba are questioning some of the townspeople about this strange man they saw, they told me to come back here and get some rest, che." Hiruma snorted and grabbed onto a piece of plain bread, biting into it harshly. "As if I need sleep." His eyes trailed over to Sena again.

"So I've heard that you and your lover-boy have been put into separate rooms, how did that come about?"

Sena went completely red in the blink of an eye.

"L-lover-boy?"

Hiruma sighed. "Well, with the way he acts around you seems to be a dead give away that he likes you a whole hell of a lot more than anyone else. Now then, back to the question."

"Well, it's because..." Sena trailed off, not really wanting to tell the blonde why at all.

"You were sleeping in the same bed?"

Sena's jaw dropped open. "H-h-h-how-"

"And someone came in and saw, clearly getting the wrong idea. But then how did Madam high and mighty find out about it? Since she seems the type who'd drag you away as soon as she found out instead of waiting to separate you two."

"How do you know these things?!"

"I can read your mind." Hiruma replied with a completely straight face, causing Sena to step back nervously.

"Y-you can?"

The blonde cocked an eyebrow. "Obviously not, but since you're so shocked and mortified about it I must be right."

"Oh." For some reason the excuse did nothing to make Sena more comfortable in the blonde's presence, and, not wanting to be stared at in silence he decided to ask the question that had been nagging him for a while now.

"Why do you not like Lord Shin's cousin?"

"He's an easy man to dislike." Hiruma responded casually. "The only people who like him are related to him."

"Well, that isn't very nice." The brunette commented and the blonde shrugged.

"It doesn't matter what's nice or not. There are very few people who've met Rodchenko and not felt a bad vibe coming from him. Which makes a lot of things a lot more interesting." Hiruma smirked darkly and left the kitchen, leaving Sena to wonder what exactly was made more interesting.

Shin and Suzuna awoke not long after and the three of them spent the majority of the day lazing around the house. Sena and Suzuna not feeling up to doing anything productive since there were no adults around, and Shin wasn't about to go off on his own when he could stick by Sena's side all day.

It was in the early evening when the three young men returned to the manor, Hiruma looking rather victorious while Takami and Sakuraba looked almost scandalized.

"Elf bro, do you know who broke in?!" Suzuna questioned excitedly upon seeing them and Hiruma shook his head.

"But I've got an idea about who's behind everything." He said, looking quite proud of himself even as Takami worriedly placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Hiruma, it's not good to jump to conclusions like that. Trying to blame it on that man is a big deal. Plus the Lord and Lady would never believe you."

"Which is why I'm going to prove it. Sorry kiddos," he swivelled around to look at the three teenagers. "but it looks like my time here has been cut short. I'm leaving first thing in the morning."

"Awww." Suzuna pouted, clearly depressed at the information. Shin on the other hand looked rather pleased.

"Well, I'll probably wake up before you all do, so, until we meet again." Hiruma abruptly turned and made his way up the stairs.

"So, who is it that elf bro thinks is behind everything?" Suzuna prodded and Takami sighed.

"No one you need to worry about. I shall inform the Lord and Lady of the incident when they return, I assume that they will tighten up the security of their home afterwards and we will not need to worry about something like this again." Takami informed them curtly as he too made his way up the stairs, quickly followed by a rather unnerved looking Sakuraba.

"Well, that's no fun." Suzuna crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side. "I would have liked to hear elf bro's theory, wouldn't you?"

"I think we should just forget it happened. I mean, what are the chances of it happening again?"

Suzuna's pout became even more pronounced. "No fun at all." She said before turning and walking off, leaving Shin and Sena alone.

"I guess she just doesn't want to leave well enough alone, huh?" Sena questioned lightly before sighing.

'We slept until around noon, but it doesn't seem like there's much point in staying up any longer.'

"Come on Seijuro, let's get you to your room." Sena took a step forward and paused.

'I know the chances of it happening again are practically zero, but, maybe just to be sure...'

"Maybe we'll go to my room instead, just to be safe." Sena began walking up the stairs, Shin happily trailing behind him when Sena didn't say his goodnights at the top of the stairs, as had become his custom.

That night as they settled into bed, Shin's arms wrapping around him securely, his breath brushing against the hairs at the nape of his neck, Sena couldn't help but think that this felt right somehow.

Maybe he had become too used to it.

"Sena likes Seijuro?" Shin questioned, his warm breath tickling Sena's ear.

"Yes, I like you very much Seijuro." Sena replied softly.

"Seijuro likes Sena. Very much."


	7. Chapter 7

FASH: School's starting up again really soon, so I'll probably have the next chapter up by next Sunday.

""-speech

''-thoughts

Day were once again passing by in a blur, none of them being very distinguishable. The Lord and Lady came home, were slightly miffed at missing Hiruma, were informed of the break in, tightened security and Shin's lessons went on.

Every once in a while Hiruma would send him a letter for no particular reason. He never said anything about who he thought the suspect was or how his quest for proof were going, he only warned Sena to keep his eyes open for suspicious characters. After a while Sena got used to them and even they didn't stand out much in his mind to identify the passage of time.

And every night Shin would always ask Sena if he liked him, followed by admitting he liked Sena, before going to bed.

It had sort of become their night time ritual, quickly replacing 'goodnight' as the thing they said to each other before they parted ways. Sena had become so used to it, he didn't even bother questioning what Shin meant by 'like'.

By the time early summer had come around Sakuraba had coerced Takami into holding a lot of the lessons outside where Shin could get some fresh air. The days were peaceful and uneventful, Sena almost convinced himself that those times would last forever. Almost.

Sena supposed it was inevitable that once Shin had a basic understanding of language Takami would start teaching him words he hadn't bothered with before, the names of plants, places and animals.

In what Sena thought of as a cruel twist of fate, one of the first words Takami had attempted to teach him on a particularly sunny day in early June, was 'bear'.

Shin tensed and Sena was immediately taking one hand in his, rubbing at Shin's back in a soothing manner with the other.

Sakuraba nervously stopped scribbling away in his notebook at the sight. "What's going on? Does he not know what bears are?"

Sena threw him a look over his shoulder. "Please don't repeat that word Sakuraba, Seijuro doesn't like it!"

Sakuraba looked extremely baffled for a moment, as did Takami.

"But... Why doesn't he?"

"I don't know." Sena admitted before pulling Shin closer to him. "Don't worry Seijuro, everything is going to be okay." He bit his lip in contemplation before carefully wording his question. "Would you like to talk about... Your feelings?" He finished awkwardly and Shin burrowed deeper into his embrace.

"No."

"Oh, alright then." Sena threw another look over his shoulder at Sakuraba and Takami, both of whom seemed unsure how to handle the situation.

"Well, you know..." Sakuraba began tentatively. "All work and no play makes Seijuro a dull boy. Maybe we should have a day of rest?"

Takami adjusted his glasses with a small frown, clearly not very enticed by the idea of taking a day off from lessons, but he nodded. "Very well. Come along Sakuraba, I'm going to need your help with something."

Sakuraba looked rather confused for a moment before a strange realization sparked in his eyes and he hurriedly gathered up his notes.

Sena wondered if he even wanted to know. Probably not.

"Seijuro, you might feel better if you talk to me. You trust me, right?"

Shin nodded, but he tensed a little more and Sena decided not to pry any further for now.

"Did you want to stay outside for a while? It's a nice day today." Sena commented as he began to pull away, only to have Shin lean in closer to him.

"Stay." Shin entreated, hands moving to grab onto Sena's shoulders. "Stay."

"Okay Seijuro, we can stay like this until you feel better."

It's was only Shin's child-like innocence and honest discomfort that assured Sena that the older boy wasn't smug about this situation.

They stayed as they were for quite some time before Shin began getting restless and started dragging Sena on a walk around the grounds. Sena followed after him with a small smile, Shin had developed an interest in the horses his family owned and he always liked getting a close look at them.

Shin slowed to a stop when he saw a coal black mare particularly close to the fence she was enclosed by.

Sena, slightly amused by Shin's reaction, stepped towards the fence and motioned the mare to come closer, speaking to her softly under his breath, his hand moving in a calming motion to bid her over to him.

The mare, after several long moments of indecision, moved toward him and Sena ran his fingers through her mane gently with one hand, motioning Shin closer with the other.

Shin crept forward and shakily held out a hand to copy Sena's movement.

"Easy now, do it gently. There you go, be careful not to tangle up her mane." Sena whispered out of habit, never having liked to speak at a normal volume when he was around the mares he'd take care of in the stables.

The mare soon tired of their attention and turned away to begin grazing, but the few minutes spent petting her had given Shin a huge smile.

'He looks so sweet when he smiles, it's hard to believe-' Sena cut his thoughts off and blushed, not sure it was safe for him to think any further along those lines.

"Horses like Sena?" Shin asked curiously once the mare was out of his reach.

"Well, I suppose they might like me, or they at least tolerate me since I don't frighten them." Sena rubbed at the back of his neck, wondering if he should take advantage of Shin's good mood to ask him the question that had been on his mind a while now.

"Seijuro, you trust me, right?"

"Seijuro trusts Sena!"

"And... And you know you can tell me anything, right?"

Shin raised his eyebrows curiously. "Sena wants to know something?"

"Well, yes, but I don't want to make you uncomfortable..." Sena nervously looked away, feeling rather bad for wanting Shin to discuss something that would obviously make him uncomfortable. "Never mind, I don't need to know."

"But Seijuro will answer Sena!" Shin claimed valiantly. "What does Sena want?"

"It's alright, I don't need to know."

"But Seijuro will answer Sena!" Shin repeated stubbornly and Sena sighed.

"Fine. I... I want to know why you dislike that word."

"That word?" Shin looked puzzled for a moment, then his eyes widened with recognition.

"But you don't have to tell me!" Sena was quick to say, holding his hands up as if that would bring Shin to a halt if he started anything he didn't want to.

"... Seijuro will answer Sena." Shin mumbled shyly and Sena found himself reaching out to rest a soothing hand on he older boy's shoulder.

"Are you sure? I really wont make you talk about it if you don't want to."

Shin nodded before awkwardly fumbling around to find the right words. "Men. Hunters. Seijuro was with his mother, they came. Yelled a lot, same word all the time."

"And that word was 'bear'?" Sena asked slowly and Shin nodded. "What do you think that word means?"

"Bad things." Shin replied with a shudder and Sena reassuringly lightly grabbed a hold of Shin's hands.

" But Seijuro, it doesn't mean bad things. A bear is the name of the animal that took care of you. Remember way back when I first said that word? I said mother-bear."

Shin looked at him in mild shock. "Really?"

"Yes. But, something's bothering me, do you mind if I ask you another question?" Shin shifted uncomfortably and Sena quickly rose his hands into the air in a pacifying gesture. "I won't if it makes you feel awkward!"

"Sena can ask, if Sena wants to."

"Did the hunters see you? Did they know that you were there too? If so, did you recognize any of them from when Hiruma-san caught you?"

"Not the same hunters. Saw me, chased me, I got away." Shin replied monotonously, eyes dull. "Lots of banging, strange sound with strange smell."

"A strange smell?" Sena questioned, eyes widening a little. "Was it gunpowder?"

"Gunpowder?" Shin cocked his head to the side, clearly having no idea what Sena was talking about.

"Never mind, I'll figure out what it was later." Sena assured him, although the thought of a group of hunters trying to shoot Shin down bothered him.

'What kind of person would shoot at a boy? Even if his hair was a mess and he was dirty, it would still be easy to see that he was a human. Unless they wanted Seijuro to be eliminated...'

A lot of stuff did seem to happen around Shin, what if the person who had broken in entered through his bedroom window on purpose?

'I hope Hiruma solves this soon, otherwise I'm going to make myself paranoid with conspiracy theories.'

"Sena." Shin spoke up, breaking Sena out of his train of thought. "Can you answer question?"

"Of course! What is it you need to know?"

"What is a 'bride'?"

Sena almost chocked, but he quickly pulled himself together before Shin could ask him what was wrong. "A bride?" He repeated, just to make sure he'd heard correctly, mentally crossing his fingers that Shin had asked what a braid was instead.

Shin nodded his head, dashing Sena's hopes that he wouldn't have to explain what a bride was.

"Seijuro heard mother saying Seijuro should have one. What is it Seijuro needs?"

"Uh, well..." Sena trailed off, not sure where to begin.

Shin didn't know about the concept of marriage, so it would be hard to explain to him what a bride was without going into details about a bunch of other things so that he would understand. He wished Takami were around, he'd probably be able to explain this ten times better than Sena could ever hope to.

Shin stared at him patiently, Sena felt his palms begin to get clammy.

"Well, a bride is, um, someone who spends all their life with their counterpart, the groom. Your mother was a bride when she... Decided to be with your father forever. A bride and groom love each other a lot and, uh, that's about it."

"Mother was a bride?" Shin questioned and Sena nodded vigourously.

"Then Sakuraba is Takami's bride?"

Sena paused and began to sputter, trying to think of a way he could deny it. "No! Why would you think that?!"

"Sakuraba loves Takami, Seijuro heard so."

"Oh, well then... I suppose maybe they sort of are like a married couple..."

"Then..." Shin had a slight blush on his face and Sena suddenly discovered that his heart was beating a mile a minute for no particular reason. "Seijuro is Sena's bride?"

"Uh, no." Sena said, slightly grateful that Shin hadn't said that the other way around, it would have made him feel even more awkward.

"No?" Shin furrowed his eyebrows and looked mildly distraught.

"We're friends Seijuro. We like each other, we don't love each other."

"Oh."

Sena tried to ignore how disappointed Shin looked at his answer.

'Still, it's strange that Lady Shin would be discussing brides for Seijuro, I mean, he hasn't even been home for a full year yet, and he hardly talks to anyone other that Takami, Sakuraba, Suzuna and I.'

He discovered the reason soon enough though, because apparently this idea wasn't as secret as the 'get rid of Sena' plan. In just a month it would be Shin's seventeenth birthday, and apparently she wanted to invite a bunch of 'proper' girls to introduce him too. If any of the girls caught Shin's attention, then some courting would take place, after Takami taught Shin what exactly courting was, and then they'd be married next year.

Sena, although he wouldn't admit it out loud, thought it was a pretty stupid idea.

Seijuro sort of knew what a bride was, but he didn't know what love, in a romantic sense, was and Sena was fairly certain Seijuro wouldn't bother wooing anyone if he didn't love them. He was also pretty sure none of the prim and proper girls Lady Shin invited would catch Shin's eye.

Maybe he was too confident in their relationship to think this, but he was fairly certain that if he was around, Shin wouldn't pay attention to any of the girls.

Lady Shin must have also realized this, because she subtly 'suggested' that Sena take the day off to spend with his parents.

He agreed to her order without fuss, not wanting her to become more cross with him than usual.

'Besides,' He reasoned to himself contentedly, 'I haven't seen mom in a dog's age, and even when I do see dad around, he's busy with work and I can't really talk to him.'

Shin was far less content with the decision.

A couple days before his birthday he approached Sena, practically pouting compared to his normal, stoic look.

"Takami told Seiju- me that Sena will not be there for Sei- my birthday." He said uncomfortably, Takami had been trying to stop him from talking in third person for a couple weeks now.

"Takami says that birthdays are special. Need to be celebrated with people dear to you. Why is Sena not coming?"

"I'm sorry, but I made plans to see my parents before I knew that it would be your birthday, and I already asked for the time off." Sena explained calmly.

"Sena will be gone all day?"

"Yes, probably, it'll be like it was at Christmas. Nothing to worry too much about."

"Christmas?! Then mother is going to make Sena go further away?!" Shin asked, worry evident on his features. "Seijuro does not want Sena to go!"

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way." Sena soothingly rubbed Shin's back. "I just meant that you'd have so much fun stuff to do, you'll never notice that I'm not there. You can forget about me for a while."

Seijuro gave him a rather incredulous look. "Seijuro would never forget Sena!"

The brunette found himself blushing at the admission and he fought to keep himself from stuttering when he answered. "That's very sweet of you, but I've already made plans to spend the whole day with my parents. I'm sure you'll have fun without me."

Shin crossed his arms stubbornly. "Not fun without Sena."

"Don't be so pessimistic Seijuro, promise me you'll at least try to have fun without me."

Shin frowned, but nodded. "Seijuro will promise for Sena."

July the ninth arrived swiftly and Sena, as he had promised Lady Shin, was up and out of the house before Shin could wake up and fret over is leaving. His mother was overjoyed to spend the entire day with him, and although his father only wore a small smile, Sena could tell that he was just as happy to spend time with him.

It made Sena feel like a bad son, constantly spending time with someone he wasn't related to while hardly talking to his own parents.

'But soon we'll go back to the way we were before, Seijuro's becoming more accustomed to his new way of life, and if Lady Shin thinks he's practically ready to get married, well... It's not like Seijuro can take me along on his honeymoon.'

The thought made Sena flush, although the very idea was preposterous.

It was just after the sun began to set when he started making his way to the manor, slightly curious if Shin's birthday party would still be going on. But much to his surprise, when he opened the door to the Shin household all that greeted his ears was silence.

Then Suzuna popped out of nowhere to scare the living daylights out of him.

"Yaa! I'm surprised you came back here, why didn't you stay with you parents some more?" She questioned the perplexed boy.

"I, uh, where is everyone?"

Suzuna cocked her head to the side. "Didn't Lady Shin tell you? After celebrating the young master's birthday and showing him off to a bunch of respectable ladies the family and Takami went off to visit Lord Rodchenko."

"What? I didn't hear anything about that... Wait a minute, what about Sakuraba?"

"He's up in his room moping. The way he's acting it seems like he won't see Takami for seven years, not seven days." Suzuna clasped her hands together and sighed. "It's kind of adorable actually, he's like a little puppy. In any case, I can't believe you didn't know about Lady Shin's plans."

Sena could believe it, he believed it so much it was scary.

"The young master threw a bit of a fit when he found out he'd be leaving you behind though, it took Takami and Lord Shin ages to calm him down because Lady Shin just seemed to keep making things worse." Suzuna frowned a little. "She doesn't like you at all, does she?"

"It took you that long to figure that out?" Sena asked, slightly amused.

"Well no, but when Lady Shin says things like 'in a couple months he won't be around anyways' it's kind of hard to miss. Ah, which reminds me, she wanted me to tell you something when you came back."

"Oh? What is it??" 'Another speech about how I shouldn't take advantage of her son?'

"She said that the young master knows his name now, so you don't have to trouble yourself by remembering it, or something like that."

Sena frowned, for a moment not understanding, then realization hit.

'She wants me to start addressing Seijuro by their family name now.'

Well, she had told him before that as soon as Shin recognized his given name that she wanted him to stop addressing him so informally, Sena had completely forgotten about it until now though.

'And this trip, it's probably to test out how well he can behave without me. If he's good the entire time, when he comes back Lady Shin will know he doesn't need me anymore.'

It was an unsettling thought, for Shin not to need him, over the past several months he'd become used to Shin wanting to be around him. Become used to wanting to be around Shin, himself.

"Sena? Sena, what are you spacing out for?" Suzuna asked, effectively snapping Sena back into reality.

"Oh, nothing really. I'll just head home now, mom's gonna be really happy that I can stay for even longer."

"Alright, feel free to drop by. Sakuraba might brighten up a bit once the week of separation is almost over." Suzuna said with a dazzling smile, waving good-bye as Sena walked back out the door.

As he had expected, his parents were delighted to know that he would be able to stay home for longer than expected and he spent a fair amount of time getting himself used to living like he had before.

He'd probably be coming back to live here soon, after all, Shin had grown up a lot, he surely didn't need Sena around anymore.

He occasionally went by the manor to visit with Suzuna and Sakuraba, both of the younger teens trying to cheer the blonde up in Takami's absence.

"Ah, you two are too nice to me, putting up with me when I'm all sulky like this." Sakuraba commented dryly on the fifth day of separation before he threw a curious look over at Sena. "Although I must admit, I'm kind of surprised you don't seem down in the dumps."

"Why's that?" Sena asked slowly and Sakuraba shrugged.

"No particular reason, you and Seijuro just seem to be attached at the hip most of the time, it's kind of strange to see one without the other, you know?" He commented.

And then, of course, Suzuna had to put her two cents in. "Yeah, you guys are practically married."

Sena tried to think of a retort, but found that no matter how much he moved his mouth no sound was coming out. Sakuraba wasn't helping much either, in fact, if Sena's eyes weren't deceiving him, the blonde had even nodded at Suzuna's comment.

"Don't do that, you'll catch flies." Suzuna reprimanded him lightly and Sena shut his mouth and decided that, instead of trying to defend himself, he'd let the topic drop.

He had the feeling that Sakuraba and Suzuna wouldn't believe anything he said anyways.

When the week was over Sena said good-bye to his parents once again just after noon before leaving for the manor. Sakuraba had received a letter from Takami a couple days pryer informing him that they'd probably be back in time for lunch.

Sena appeared to be right on time, because he'd only just reached the front door when he saw a carriage in the distance.

He had quickly opened up the door to yell: "They're back!" and immediately Suzuna and Sakuraba had scrambled outside to stand with him.

The carriage stopped and Sena held his breath, waiting for the door to swing open.

This was the moment of truth.


	8. Chapter 8

FASH: Sorry for the slight delay, I had school stuff to do. I think this is almost done though, maybe two more chapters after this until it's fully completed. Anyways, I'm sure everyone knew that the beginning was going to be like this, but oh well.

""-speech

''-thoughts

"SENA!"

'Well, apparently I had nothing to worry about.' Sena thought, feeling rather giddy even as Shin rushed towards him and tackled him to the ground.

"So I guess you missed me then?" He asked lightly, squirming a bit when Shin refused to remove himself.

"Of course." Shin replied, sounding as if he had been shocked at the question.

Well, it looks like Lady Shin would have to put up with him for a bit longer than she had expected. And speaking of Lady Shin, she was glaring at him like no tomorrow after she stepped out of the carriage, probably thinking he was somehow taking advantage of her son again. They position they were in probably wasn't helping the situation very much either, come to think of it.

"I missed you too, but I think it's time for you to get up, it's a bit hard to breathe underneath you like this."

Shin reluctantly lifted himself up and Sena quickly rose up to his feet, dusting off his clothes half-heartedly.

-x-x-x-

"Ah, young friendship." Lord Shin clasped his hands together as he observed the two boys in front of him. "It's hard to imagine either of them spending much time without the other and not becoming slightly unhinged."

Lady Shin sniffed indignantly at that. "On the contrary. Seijuro was fine the entire trip until he saw his _companion _again." She glared a little harder as Sena lead her son into the house, Shin following behind him like a lost puppy. "He didn't cause any trouble at Lord Rodchenko's home, he's showing a great amount of improvement."

"My dear, he didn't cause any trouble because he was moping the entire time. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought he was heartbroken at the thought of leaving young Sena behind." Lord Shin smiled brightly. "It's wonderful that our son has a friend that he's so attached to, isn't it?"

Lady Shin grit her teeth and smiled. "Yes, so wonderful."

So wonderful that she could almost cry.

Lord Shin took his wife's arm and lead her inside the manor and towards his study.

"It was very nice of Rodchenko to invite us over for Seijuro's birthday, he seems to be more sociable than usual this year." He said conversationally. "Coming to our Christmas party, inviting us over to his home twice, it's a nice change of pace."

"Change is good." His wife replied steadily. "Just a couple years ago it wouldn't be strange if we never saw him for an incredible stretch of time."

"Indeed." Lord Shin opened the door to his study and ushered his wife in, softly closing the door behind him. "But sometimes, some things don't need to be changed, don't you think?"

"That depends entirely on what you are talking about, darling."

He ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. "Is it really necessary for Seijuro to find himself a wife? This process seems to be quite rushed."

"Seijuro is old enough to marry."

"Physically yes, but what about mentally and emotionally? Seijuro doesn't even know what a bride is and you're already introducing him to eligible women, why are you making such haste?" He leaned in curiously. "This isn't like you."

She sighed into her hands. "You know I only want the best for Seijuro, right? I want to make sure his life goes by smoothly."

"Of course, that's how mothers are supposed to feel about their children." He tenderly cupped her face in his hands. "But this still seems to be fairly drastic, don't you think?"

"There is someone who I want separated from our son, and the gap they will leave in Seijuro's heart will need to be filled by a more appropriated person."

"... A wife? Who did you wish to be rid of? Certainly not Suzuna, as sweet as she is Seijuro hardly ever casts a look her way unless Sena's there with the both of them..."

He paused and blinked slowly.

"Sena? You wish to be rid of Sena? Why?"

"Darling, he's taking advantage of our son!"

He gave her a disbelieving look. "I realize that as I am not around very often I often do not notice some of the things you do, my dear, but I would hardly say that Sena is taking advantage of our son. If anything he spoils him by dedicating so much time and affection to him."

"But they were sleeping in the same bed!"

"They slept beside each other in the barn the first night, and Hiruma told us to keep them together so Seijuro would stay calm."

"But Seijuro had still been around for months at that point!"

Lord Shin's lips twitched slightly. "Dear, jealousy does not suit you."

"I am not jealous!" She responded aghast.

"_Dear..._"

"Okay, perhaps I am, but don't I have a right to be?! You know more than anyone how distraught I was when he first disappeared and how sanguine I was when I heard that there was a chance he was alive." She wrung her hands together, shoulders drooping slightly. "And then we sent out search teams, hiring anyone who might be able to find him, and each time they came back empty handed I swore I could feel my soul begin to perish."

Lord Shin rested his hands on her shoulders comfortingly.

"By the time Hiruma came around I had practically given up all hope, but then Seijuro was brought back, and I could finally be a mother again! But Seijuro didn't need me. It wasn't me who he came to for comfort, it wasn't me who could calm him down, it wasn't me who he came to care about the most." Her eyes began to tear up and she swiped the back of her hand over them in a futile attempt to control herself.

"I wanted to be a mother again, instead I am little more than a stranger to him with the title of 'mother'."

"And you think that would change if Sena was gone?"

She looked up at him, lips trembling slightly. "Yes." She chocked hopelessly, even she didn't seem to have faith in the one word answer and a tear slipped down her cheek before she could reach up and brush it away.

Lord Shin wiped it away with the pad of his thumb and he slowly, gently pressed a kiss to his wife's forehead.

"I cannot completely rid Seijuro of his first and best friend, but if it makes you feel any better, maybe once Seijuro has been here a full year we can give Sena his old job back. He will still be around, but he will have work to do during the day and he will go home to his family at night." He sighed forlornly. "They will still have time to be together, but not nearly as much as they are used to. Is that alright?"

His wife shakily took his face in her hands and pressed light kisses all over his visage, whispering 'thank you' each time she pulled away.

Lord Shin had done something good for his wife, but would it be good for his son?

-x-x-x-

Sena had lead Shin into the drawing room, a dark blush staining his cheeks.

Sakuraba had been elated to see Takami again, so elated in fact, that once he had pulled the older man into the house he had paused in the foyer, spun Takami around and pressed a rather fervent kiss on his lips.

Sena had averted his eyes and tugged on Shin's hand to draw the other boy along, but Shin had stopped to watch, cocking his head to the side inquisitively.

Then he turned around, eyes still sparking with curiosity.

'Oh dear.'

"Sena," He began, taking a step closer towards the nerve-wracked brunette. "I want to-"

Sena promptly turned around and tried running full speed, thankfully able to tug Shin along because the older boy hadn't expected to be forced to move while he was busy trying to say something.

Of course, it didn't take too long for Shin to recover his train of thought, thankfully he was at least silent until Sena had shut them into the drawing room.

"Sena, I want to do that with you." Shin stated boldly, not a trace of hesitation visible on his face.

"Uh... Uh..." Was Sena's immaculate reply and Shin seemed to take that as an 'alright', because he brought his hands up to Sena's shoulders and started leaning in.

Sena ducked down and took a couple side-steps, nervously fiddling with the hem of his shirt and taking several more steps back when Shin began to stride forward purposefully.

"Seij-Shin, now really isn't the time for such things." He stuttered out, finding it oddly hard to say Shin's family name, much like how he'd felt when he started calling Shin by his given name.

Shin paused, eyebrows furrowing. "Shin?" He repeated, as if the name were foreign to him, then he patted a hand against his chest. "Seijuro." He said slowly, moving his hand to point at Sena. "Sena." He moved his hand back to his chest. "Seijuro."

"Your mother wants me to call you by your family name Sei-Shin." Sena replied unsteadily, mentally cursing when he slipped up again.

Shin frowned darkly. "No."

"No? No what?"

"No." Shin repeated stubbornly, quickly moving forward and grasping Sena's face in his hands. "Sena will call me Seijuro."

"But I'm not allow-" Sena was abruptly cut off when Shin ardently pressed their lips together, one of his hands moving to grasp the back of Sena's head while the other remained in place, resting on his cheek.

Sena's eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat, Shin had never kissed him this passionately before.

It was nice. Mind-Numbingly so and Sena found that he could do little more than go limp in Shin's grasp when faced by such lasciviousness.

Shin pulled away, breathing heavily. "Call me Seijuro."

"Se-Seijuro." Sena responded weakly, trying to wrap his mind around the situation.

Shin smiled and moved closer, clearly intent on gifting Sena with a couple more kisses of gratitude, but stopped when he heard footsteps coming closer.

Really he would have preferred not to stop, but Shin had noticed Sena was always so jumpy and shy, especially when other people were around, even more so when that person was his mother.

So Shin reluctantly pulled away and not a moment too soon, because his mother soon came into the room, her eyes cooly surveying the situation.

Shin may have been several steps away from Sena, but the brunette's blushing, laboured breathing and swelling lips testified to what was going on prior to her entry.

One elegant eyebrow twitched and Sena flinched as if he had just been yelled at.

"Seijuro, please give me and Sena a few moments alone." She asked kindly and Shin worriedly sent Sena a look, feeling an unfamiliar twinge running through him at the sight of the dishevelled boy, adding more heat to the normal warmth he felt when around Sena.

He walked out of the room obediently, his mind already abuzz as it tried to sort out the new feeling. After not being able to find a name for it on his own he decided it would be best to consult Takami.

Takami knew everything, at least in Shin's mind he did, so that was the obvious course of action. Now he'd just have to find the suddenly elusive man.

Meanwhile inside the room Lady Shin had taken several calming breaths, trying to ignore Sena's ruffled appearance.

'Only a little bit longer, just a little bit longer and he'll hardly ever be around the house again.'

"I have come to inform you that your time is almost up." She said, a small smile tugging at her lips.

"My time, ma'am?"

"Yes, I have spoken with my husband on the matter and we have come to the conclusion that once Seijuro has been here a full year, you will go back to your previous occupation."

Sena tensed a bit. "A year?"

"Yes, do you remember when Hiruma first brought my boy back?"

Sena shook his head. He had no idea, but he knew that a year had nearly passed by now.

'Seijuro came in the autumn and it's summer now, I have a couple months left.'

"I remember the day like it was yesterday, it was October third."

October third, today was July sixteenth, he had about three months.

"Seijuro has shown a great amount of growth in all accounts and I suspect that by this time he'll be able to handle not seeing you for days at a time, he was able to handle himself at Lord Rodchenko's home, after all."

"Of course, ma'am." Sena responded.

"But I am not a fool, you and Seijuro are very close, which is why I want to 'wean him off of your presence', as it were."

Sena blinked in confusion at the wording. "Wean, ma'am?"

"Yes, from today onwards I want you spending less time with Seijuro, but not so much that it's noticeable at first. This way, when the time comes, Seijuro will not be as shocked by your absence." Her eyes softened a bit and Sena instantly felt more nervous than usual.

"We both want what's best for Seijuro, don't we?" She asked and Sena slowly nodded. "Good, I expect you to carry on with the plan then."

She made her way out of the room and Sena ran a hand through his hair worriedly.

Even if he wanted to start spending less time around Shin, which he most certainly didn't even when he went back to his old job, it was going to be awfully difficult to _not _be around him. Shin had nearly broken down a door to get to him before, this entire scheme seemed like it would be quite unsuccessful.

But Lady Shin was _somewhat _right, he didn't want Shin to be distraught when he went back to his old job, he hadn't even expected to get his old job back at any rate, so that was an added bonus too. The point was, if he had to try and cut down on his time with Shin so that the older boy would be less hurt in the end, then he supposed he'd have to do it.

He told himself that he was completely fine with the plan, but he already knew that he was lying, and badly at that.

Sena fiddled with the hem of his shirt for a moment before realizing that Shin had yet to come back into the room and he peeked out into the hallway.

It was a Shin-free zone at the moment, strange.

'Seijuro doesn't tend to wander off without me.' He pursed his lips. 'And I doubt Lady Shin would be able to physically drag him away. Maybe Lord Shin wanted to speak with him?'

Even then, Sena couldn't really imagine Shin ambling off with his father to speak, especially not after giving Sena a kiss like the one he had given.

God, Sena started blushing just thinking about it.

He could have just waited for Shin to finish whatever it was he may have been doing, but he'd been waiting a week to see the boy again and he didn't want to be left alone on the day he came back.

He searched the first floor for a good ten minutes before moving up the stairs, turning towards the room he and Shin had once shared.

He hadn't walked even three steps down the hall before he heard Shin's voice calling him from the opposite direction.

"Seijuro, what were you doing down there?" He asked only to have his question ignored as Shin passed by and grabbed onto his hand, leading Sena to their old room with an odd sense of urgency.

"What's going on?" He asked once Shin had secured the both of them inside their old room. Then he noticed something strange.

Shin appeared to be blushing. There weren't many things that could make blood rush to the stoic teen's cheeks.

"Went to ask Takami about something, was not in his room, I checked Sakuraba's after. They were doing strange things."

"What strange things..." Sena's mind supplied the answer before he actually finished the question, causing him to drawl out the 's' of the final word longer than necessary.

"I tried to figure out why they were-"

"Wait a minute! Were you _watching _them?"

"Yes." Shin replied simply, as if he hadn't intruded on a very private moment.

"Did they realize you saw?"

"No."

Thank goodness, at least Takami and Sakuraba wouldn't be dying of embarrassment any time soon.

"Why do you ask?" Shin continued curiously and Sena took a deep breath.

"That was a very private moment you just witnessed."

"But they were doing something very similar to it before, in front of us, remember?" Shin questioned and Sena buried his head into his hands.

"Yes, I remember." He groaned. "But what you saw was a couple steps beyond what we saw together, it's the type of thing you _only _do behind closed doors."

Frankly he was surprised neither of the young men had locked the door, they could have saved Sena a lot of embarrassment.

"Steps beyond? Closed doors?" Shin repeated softly, tapping at his chin in a thoughtful manner.

Then he pounced.


	9. Chapter 9

FASH: Sorry this was really late, but school is the priority of my life and I got a bunch of homework from several of my classes, so I didn't have enough time to type this all up for last week. I'll try and get the final chapter up next week, but I can't really guarantee anything.

""-speech

''-thoughts

Sena was, by now, pretty much used to any sort of affection Shin decided to throw his way. Holding hands, hugging, innocent kisses and now kisses like the one he'd received before Lady Shin had interrupted. So it goes to say that he didn't think that he could really be shocked any more.

He stood corrected.

Shin was holding him in a warm embrace, showering him with hot kisses and pressing up against him in a way that made Sena's breath catch in his throat.

Shin seemed to realize that he was tense because he slowed down, his kisses becoming lighter and sweeter, trying to coax Sena to relax.

It worked astoundingly fast.

Shyly Sena began leaning into the kisses, softly returning them without nearly as much vigour as Shin, but the fact that he was returning them at all seemed to spur Shin on. It wasn't until after Shin pulled away to catch his breath for a moment that Sena realized the other boy's hands had slipped under his shirt, methodically running up and down his sides while Sena's own hands gripped tightly at his shoulders.

"Sena." Shin murmured, his voice hot and sweet. "Sena." He whispered again, all coherency lost as he trailed his lips down Sena's neck.

Sena moved one of his hands from Shin's shoulders to the back of the older boy's head, gripping at his hair lightly and pulling Shin's lips back up to press against his lips.

His mind was blessedly empty for several long minutes, all of his senses were engulfed by the boy in front of him and it was short-circuiting his brain.

Reality came crashing back when Shin pulled away once again, a more intense look than normal in his eyes.

"Sena, I love you."

Shock flooded though him and he froze, mind whirring as he processed the words.

'... Love?'

Maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised, Shin had been telling him that he liked him for a long while now, but could his feelings really have grown into love?

'Would he be doing this with you if he weren't in love with you?' A voice in his mind which strangely enough sounded like Hiruma asked him. 'And would you be doing this if you didn't love him?'

The answer scared him.

'No.'

"Sena, are you alright?" Shin pulled away and worriedly cupped Sena's face in his hands.

"I... I..." Sena tried to calm himself down, but now that his mind had started up again it couldn't seem to stop throwing thoughts out at him.

Did Shin really know what love was? He'd only been back for almost a year, how would he know? What if he only thought he loved Sena? Was if this was all a huge mistake?

Shin pursed his lips together and cocked his head to the side. "Takami says that, according to the way I act around you, I must really like you."

'Really like. Really liking someone isn't loving someone.'

"But there's more to it then that." Shin leaned forward and rested his forehead against Sena's. "I hate it when you're not around. When you are around, I'm really happy. I love you."

"Seijuro..." Sena removed his hands from Shin to clasp them in front of himself. "I... Your mother-"

"This isn't about my mother, it's about us." Shin furrowed his eyebrows, looking somewhat distraught. "How do you feel about me?"

"I really like you Seijuro, but..."

"But what?"

Sena lowered his eyes and attempted to stay calm as he tried to think of an answer that wouldn't alert Shin to their oncoming separation.

'Damn it, I wish I knew how to deal with this sort of thing.'

"I just... I need some time to figure everything out, is that alright?" He asked timidly and Shin nodded as he affectionately ran a hand through Sena's hair.

"Of course... But don't make me wait too long." He said with a small smile that made Sena want to confess everything right then and there, the only thing holding him back was the knowledge that in three months time they'd hardly have time to see each other any more.

He didn't know which one was more cruel: to keep his feelings to himself, or to allow Shin to become even more attached to him before they became segregated. But at this moment, the lesser of the two evils seemed to be the first choice.

He just hoped he wasn't making a huge mistake with this.

He slipped out of Shin's room before his somewhat imminent mental breakdown could occur and rushed towards his own room, hoping that he could figure everything out as long as there was nothing around to distract him.

Once he had locked himself in the relative safety of his room he began to pace, sporadically running a hand through his hair as he tried to clear his mind.

"Okay, so we kissed, nothing strange about that." He murmured. "And Seijuro says he lo-loves me. And I think I might lo-lo-love him too, maybe, sort of, even though I don't have a basis of comparison. But in several months I'll be going back to working at the stables, and Seijuro's going to be busy with his studies and whatever else his mother throws his way. We won't have any time for a relationship." Sena could feel his cheeks heating up at the thought and he quickly tried to shake his suddenly warm and fuzzy feelings away without much success.

"In any case, it would be better if we just stayed friends, then the separation won't be as bad, right?" He wrung his hands together worriedly. "But if Seijuro gets me alone again, then I might blurt everything out." He pursed his lips together and narrowed his eyes in thought.

"I guess I'll just have to keep myself from being alone with him then. It'll be for the greater good, and I'm sure that if his mother knows I'm trying to make the separation less painful she'll at least think about helping me." He nodded to himself, fairly certain that his plan would work, and if it didn't...

Well, he'd think about that when then times came, for now he would have to ask if Lord and Lady Shin would be willing to help him for the sake of their son's feelings.

-x-x-x-

Avoiding Shin, to the best of his ability at least since there was no way he could completely avoid him, was probably the stupidest idea he'd ever had in his entire life. Not only because it made him feel like some sort of spineless coward but it also made him feel awfully lonely.

He'd be with Shin during his lessons and sometimes for a couple minutes afterwards before Lord or Lady Shin came along to sweep their son away and he had to find something to occupy his time before he died of boredom. It wasn't easy, especially considering that by now he was used to spending hours of free time with Shin, so usually he'd just end up hanging around Suzuna wherever she was, occasionally helping her with her chores and moping.

"Sulking isn't going to help your situation." She'd tell him after he sighed one time too many. "This is only happening because you're letting it happen, so why don't you just ask to spend more time with the young master? Lord Shin would allow it."

"But wouldn't that make me seem... Whisy-washy? Like I can't just make up my mind?" Sena tended to mumble in response and Suzuna would roll her eyes.

"But if you're this depressed about only seeing him for the _majority _of your waking hours anyways, imagine how he feels."

Sena could imagine, and it made him feel devastatingly guilty, as if he'd just killed someone.

Operation Try-And-Avoid-Seijuro was abandoned after not even two full weeks in action, much to Lady Shin's disapproval.

Shin just seemed to be happy to be around him all the time once again, wearing a content smile on his face whenever his lessons ended and he was free to do as he wanted without someone dragging him away.

He was so content, in fact, that Sena was having a hard time trying to figure out how to tell him that pretty soon they'd be separated. He didn't want the older boy to worry that their days together were numbered.

'It won't be that bad. I'll still be around, we'll just both be busy.' He tried to assure himself every time he put off telling the older boy about the situation.

Perhaps it would not be so bad if Shin, ever the observer, hadn't started to realize that Sena was keeping something from him and began asking questions that Sena wasn't sure how he was supposed to answer.

"Sena, is something wrong?" He'd ask, his eyes oddly wide as he stared down at the brunette. "You're not hiding something from me, are you? Is mother interfering again?"

"Oh no, I've just had a lot on my mind lately, is all." Sena would answer back and he could tell from Shin's expression that the older boy didn't believe him at all.

Shin never pushed him to answer, something Sena was eternally grateful for. But he could tell that the curiosity was becoming more and more uncontrollable as time went on.

A week before Shin's first year anniversary Sena had taken to helping Suzuna out with her chores again, because despite all of Lady Shin's grand plans for her son's celebration she refused to hire anyone else to help and Suzuna was getting overworked.

He had been taking some things outside to throw in the compost when he crossed paths with his father and paused awkwardly.

"Hey, how have you been?" He asked slowly and his father shrugged his shoulders.

"Pretty busy, you know, the usual. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing well. By the end of this week I'll be back home and doing my old job again."

"I see."

His father turned to leave, but paused. "Ah, Sena, another one of those letters arrived for you this morning from Hiruma."

"Really? I'll come by and pick it up when I have some free time."

It was probably just one of Hiruma's normal updates, he'd read it when his life settled back down.

-x-x-x-

It was several days before the first year anniversary of Shin's return when Lord Rodchenko arrived at the Shin manor, seemingly in better spirits than he had been the first time Sena had met him during Christmas, but even so he still managed to give Sena the creeps. He was too busy helping Suzuna out with her chores and preparations to keep a cautious eye on him most of the time, but whenever he did manage to catch a glimpse of the man he tended to be hanging around Shin.

That irked him for some reason, but he didn't comment on it for fear of Suzuna prodding him into action. Besides, it wasn't like Rodchenko was doing anything wrong by keeping his young relative company, even if it just didn't seem right to him.

Too bad Suzuna seemed to notice his feelings anyways, reading them as though he were an open book.

"Lord Rodchenko sure is around the young master a lot, isn't he?" She began conversationally the day before the celebration. "Do you suppose they got along well when the family all went to visit him for a week?"

Sena shrugged his shoulders and Suzuna took that as a sign to go on.

"I guess it's to be expected that they get along, since they're related and all, but doesn't it seem like he's monopolizing the young master's time?"

"What Lord Rodchenko does in his free time doesn't concern me." Sena answered evenly before turning back to the pile of potatoes he had to peel.

"_Doesn't concern me_." Suzuna mimicked with a roll of her eyes. "What _he _does might not be your business, but the business of the other half of the current dynamic duo is."

"Oh? And why do you think that?" Sena asked as calmly as he could manage and Suzuna just gave him a pointed look and a dramatic sigh in response.

Suzuna not believing him wasn't that big of a deal though, because really, even he didn't believe himself. But that didn't mean he was going to let himself hurt Shin on such a high emotional level.

'Besides, after tomorrow we'll hardly have any time together, we wouldn't be able to keep up a relationship.'

He seemed to be thinking along those lines a lot lately, and then another thought would come, unbidden.

'Yes, but isn't it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?'

Sena bit his lip and tried to keep himself focused on the tasks at hand without much luck.

'Seijuro isn't emotionally mature enough to go through heartbreak, he may be older than I am, but he still hasn't been around people enough yet to be completely developed.'

Or so he kept telling himself.

-x-x-x-

The following morning Sena woke up extremely early to help Suzuna with her breakfast preparations, although he hadn't been able to attain much sleep the night beforehand due to over-thinking everything.

Being as tired as he was it wasn't all too surprising that he ended up tripping over his own two feet, bumping into Suzuna and causing them both to fall over, tipping over a couple chairs on their way, only to land in a precarious position on the floor.

They stayed still for several moments, both of them just happy that they hadn't bashed their heads off of a counter top on the way down.

"...Ow..." Suzuna groaned, breaking the silence abruptly. "It feels like I landed on a rolling pin."

"I think it's actually my arm."

"It's round and uncomfortable. Same difference. Now get off, you're heavy."

"You're not exactly light as a feather either you know, I'll be amazed if my arm doesn't get bruised." Sena replied, his lips quirking upwards in an amused smile that Suzuna easily returned.

Then they heard a stifled gasp and they both turned, paling at the sight they beheld.

Shin was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and he did _not_ look happy.

"Sena..." He began, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to find the words that would properly describe how he felt.

Sena and Suzuna quickly rolled away from each other and stood up.

"Seijuro, this isn't-"

"You love Suzuna." Shin stated darkly.

"What?! No, that was just an-"

"You never liked me."

"Would you listen to me for a second? I just tripped! It doesn't mean anything!"

"Then why haven't you answered me yet?!" Shin took several large steps forward and gripped Sena's shoulders harshly. "Why don't you tell me how you feel about me?!" His hands had begun to shake and Sena could feel the tremors through his clothes. "It's been _months_. Why haven't you answered me?"

"Because I don't want to hurt you." Sena replied earnestly.

"Then... You really don't love me..."

"Seijuro, I don't want to hurt you because tomorrow I'm going back to my old job and who knows how often we'll be able to see each other! I just... I can't..." He was starting to tear up now and he took a deep breath to try and calm himself down. "It'll be too much if I finally confess, only to have to leave right after. I can't handle that."

He slipped out of Shin's loosening grip and high tailed it out of there, knowing it wouldn't take too long for Shin to realize his feelings after that awkward heart to heart.

As he ran out of the kitchen he passed by Lord Rodchenko, but he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to care that the man had probably heard everything.

He needed some time to cool down, straighten out his thoughts. He'd basically made his feelings known now, despite his best efforts, so he needed to think things through in a less stressful environment.

He needed to go home.

He zipped out of the manor and down the main road, wondering if Shin would be following him, half hoping that he was.

He reached his house quickly and walked inside, heading for his bedroom out of habit.

It was silent, his father was still at work and his mother was probably out shopping, so there were no sounds to distract him as he sat down on his bed, intent on brooding until he could contemplate no longer. Instead he ended up falling asleep.

He woke up several hours later feeling rather out of sorts and he ran a hand through his hair tiredly, somehow feeling more exhausted now than he had before.

"I should go back to the manor. Seijuro deserves a better explanation than the one I gave him, although Suzuna's probably told him everything by now." He stood up and stretched his arms over his head before trying to pat away the wrinkles that had developed on his clothing.

His eyes slowly started moving around his room, landing on an envelope on his bedside table.

'Oh right, Hiruma sent me a letter.' He picked it up and ripped the envelope open, lazily scanning the contents before pausing and re-reading it more thoroughly, eyes going wide.

"Fuck."


	10. Chapter 10

FASH: I hope you all like the ending, and thanks so much to everyone who's shown such a great amount of interest in this story!

""-speech

''-thoughts

Sena dashed out of his house, occasionally stumbling in his hurry to get out the door as quickly as possible.

'I should have come to read the letter right after dad told me it was here!' He thought as he exited his house, slamming the door behind him and not bothering to see if it opened back up because of the force, he had no time for that.

The letter hadn't been what he was expecting at all, he was too used to Hiruma's normal updates that somehow he'd begun to think nothing out of the norm would occur. And according to Hiruma's letter, he was dead wrong about that.

_Sena, I have gathered up nearly all the evidence to prove my suspicions correct once and for all and am currently tracking down the final piece of the puzzle. I should be able to apprehend him soon due to several mistakes on his part, but even so there is no guarantee that I'll be back before any incidents can occur._

_As such I want you to keep your eyes peeled for anyone trying to keep track of Seijuro's habits and routines, stay close to him at all times. Lord Rodchenko is the prime suspect. _

The unnerving feeling he tended to get around Lord Rodchenko seemed to make sense now, not that he could feel relieved about that due to the current situation.

'The celebration is probably starting up around now, but Seijuro still doesn't like hanging around with people, so it's the perfect opportunity to get him alone without anyone thinking much of it!' Sena dashed up the main road, the Shin manor on the horizon seemed so much further than usual and it felt as though none of his steps were getting him any closer to the dwelling.

'Don't panic! Don't panic!' He inwardly yelled when he could feel himself starting to hyperventilate, something he really didn't need to go through while he was trying to run.

It was hard not to panic though, considering that this situation could have been easily avoided if he'd just answered Shin back truthfully all those months ago when the older boy had confessed. Then there would be no way for Lord Rodchenko to get close to Shin during his stay, because Shin would never have left his side to be with his relative.

He was never going to keep secrets from Shin again.

He was mere minutes away from the Shin manor now and he thoroughly racked his brain to think of where Shin might be at the moment.

'It would have to be somewhere outside, everyone is indoors for the party, if Rodchenko tried anything while inside then someone would be bound to hear. But where around the grounds could he take Seijuro? Assuming he does take him somewhere and doesn't just follow him around until they reach a good location. He wouldn't be able to take him far because the longer he's away the more noticeable it is that he's gone. And Seijuro would never let himself be dragged somewhere he didn't want to go...'

His eyebrows furrowed and he stared at the ground below him, no longer as focussed on the oncoming structure of the Shin manor now that he was sure what he was searching for would not be inside it.

'Horses! Seijuro loves to be around the horses!' Sena thought triumphantly before realizing that just that information was wholly unhelpful considering the Shin family's line of business.

'What else? Maybe if he's feeling particularly sentimental about today he'll be in the mare's stable, where we first met.'

That was the only place he could think of, so he'd just have to cross his fingers, pray that Shin was there and run like the wind.

Upon reaching the Shin family's property he swerved to the right, heading straight for the stables without bothering to think of what he'd do after finding Shin, or what he'd do if he couldn't find Shin at all.

'He has to be there, because I know how he is. So he will be there!'

He approached the stable and could see Rodchenko's massive form inside and just a little further stood Shin, head titled to the side curiously as he listened to whatever Rodchenko was telling him as the older man reached for something inside his jacket.

"Stop!" He loudly called before ramming straight into the large man, hoping to throw him off balance without much luck. Lord Rodchenko turned and glared down at him.

"What do we have here, a pest?" He sneered, clutching at the thing inside his jacket like a lifeline.

"Sena?" Shin hesitantly began, staring at Sena as if he were unsure what to say.

Rodchenko made use of this sudden, but not unwelcome, distraction to knock Shin to the side. Had Shin been focussed enough to see the blow coming he would have been able to brace himself for the hit. But as it was, with all of his attention focussed on Sena, it was all too easy to catch him off guard.

Shin tripped back and hit his head against the wooden panelling of one of the pens, not hard enough to knock him unconscious but enough to make him a bit dazed for a minute or two.

An easy target.

"Seijuro! Get up! Seijuro!" Sena yelled and Rodchenko pushed him away, slamming the small boy into the side of the building. Sena fell limp against the ground, vainly trying to get up and move.

'I just need to keep him distracted until Seijuro is capable of protecting himself again.'

"Troublesome pest." Rodchenko growled as he turned back to Shin, drawing whatever he had been holding on to from his jacket and raising it into the air, poised to strike.

Sena took a deep breath and forced himself to move quickly, as though he'd been kicked by temper-mental mare on a rampage and needed to escape before the animal could break his ribs. Although this situation was much more dreadful.

Time seem to be going by at a sluggish pace as he ran forward, his eyes locked on the knife that was already beginning to descend in a deadly arc. He wouldn't be able to stop the knife's course of action, and he knew how unaffected Rodchenko was against a physical assault from him.

That left him only one option, and without thinking of the repercussions he leapt into the knife's path.

Rodchenko's eyes widened as he met resistance and Sena allowed himself to feel a small amount of triumph before pain bloomed from his side, quickly overtaking the emotion.

He fell to the ground with a muted cry of pain, dimly aware that Shin was beginning to stir beside him.

'Please get up. Get up and save yourself before he can hurt you too.' He wearily closed his eyes, unable to muster up enough strength to keep them open as he struggled to breath evenly.

"Sena? Sena!"

"Oh, isn't this touching, a-" Rodchenko's voice was abruptly cut off and there was a gruesome sounding snap.

Sena fell unconscious to the sound of screaming.

-x-x-x-

His eyes fluttered open without much effort, seeing nothing but inky blackness for a moment before they started to adjust to the dark and he was able to make out a ceiling above him.

It felt as though a fog had settled over his mind, it was a very unnatural feeling and he couldn't even think of anything to compare it to, except for maybe sheer exhaustion.

He slowly became aware of a dull throb that was emanating from around his mid section, towards the right side, and he could feel the area pulsing uncomfortably with every beat of his heart.

'Is this what woke me up?' He was somehow able to think as he lethargically moved his hand to his side and applied pressure to the area, hoping that by doing so the pain would subside.

He ended up just making it worse.

He lurched onto his uninjured side at the contact, not able to stifle his gasp of pain as he wrenched his hand away. For several minutes all he was aware of was the slowly dulling throb in his side until the door to whatever room he was in opened and the flickering of a candle caught his attention.

"Sei-Seijuro?" He called, instantly disliking how weak his voice sounded.

How long had he been asleep?

"Sorry, but your lover boy was dragged away for his own good hours ago." A darkly amused voice answered back and Sena awkwardly tried to pull himself into a sitting position.

"Hiruma-"

"Don't move around, idiot!" Hiruma stormed into the room and set the candle on Sena's bedside table before pushing the brunette back down. "If you re-open your wound you're going to start bleeding all over the place and no one wants that to happen, again."

"But Hiruma! The letter! Is Seijuro all right? What about Lord-"

"Calm down! Just let me get settled and I'll tell you everything." Hiruma dropped himself down into a chair that had been pulled right up beside Sena's bed and ran a hand through his hair calmly.

"The kid's alright, he's just got a few scrapes and bruises because after you heroically jumped in and got yourself stabbed he pretty much snapped and went berserk on Rodchenko." Hiruma smirked darkly. "It makes me wish I was around to see the bastard's thrashing."

Sena allowed himself to relax after hearing Shin was alright, although he winced a bit at Hiruma's next words.

"Of course, if you had bothered reading my letter when it first arrived, the whole stabbing bit could have been avoided."

"Sorry." Sena mumbled, cheeks heating up in embarrassment since he knew it was true.

"In fact, if you had just been honest about your feelings you probably would have been fine." Hiruma continued, examining his nails in a bored fashion.

"Sorry." The brunette meekly repeated.

"But all things considered, you did pretty good. You're now the poster boy for the power of love."

Sena almost preened at the praise, until Hiruma cut in.

"Just don't do anything stupid like jumping in front of a knife again. Suzuna's been crying non-stop because of you, and Shin junior was hovering around you without getting sleep for so long that he started to look like the living dead. I had to order him off to bed before he collapsed onto of you from exhaustion and made your wound worse."

Sena flushed a little at the thought of Shin loitering around him worriedly, so concerned with Sena's health that he didn't bother worrying about his own. As soon as Shin woke up he'd have to assure the older boy that he was alright and apologize for all the stupid things he'd done.

'And speaking of all the stupid things I've done, Hiruma looks like he's going to start talking about them again.'

In an attempt to change the flow of the conversation, since Sena wasn't sure he could take any more guilt, he asked if Hiruma's evidence had proven his suspicions to everyone.

Hiruma's satisfied grin spoke volumes, but he decided to give a verbal response as well.

"Of course. Although at first the Lord and Lady of the house didn't want to believe me at all, it was only at the kid's insistence that they didn't brush off the latest incident as a freak accident and got to hear the whole story."

Sena perked up, his mind was clearing now that he had been awake for a while, and the mention of the 'whole story' grabbed his attention.

"What exactly did you tell them?" He asked curiously and Hiruma scoffed.

"I'm not going to go through the entire thing again, so you'll just get the key points." He drawled lazily.

"That's fine."

"Well, Rodchenko was Lord Shin's only living relative, so if anything were to happen to Lord and Lady Shin their estate would pass on to Lord Rodchenko, his next of kin. Of course when the kid was born that idea was put on hold."

"B-but then, you mean, he wanted to kill the Lord and Lady, even before Seijuro was born?"

"I don't know for sure, it's just an educated guess. A _very educated _guess. Rodchenko is a greedy bastard, I think it's highly likely that he'd plan something like that."

"I-I see." Sena wrung his hands nervously. "And then when Seijuro was born, that was just another obstacle?"

"Right. But Lord Shin is a family man, and he'd never suspect Rodchenko of anything, which is exactly why he was so easy to exploit. So Rodchenko came over one day to visit and brought one man along with him, and he excused himself from dinner early to discuss things with him. Really what he was doing was sneaking into the kitchen to put a minor sedative into the current stable boy's food, just enough to keep him asleep while his man snuck out of a window and nabbed a horse for his own use."

"And then in the morning, when Seijuro was gone, the stable boy hadn't seen anyone come or go, neither had any of the servants, and Lord Rodchenko could claim that his associate had been talking with him all night."

"Exactly. And since it would be strange if the entire family started to disappear or die at the same time it would make people suspicious, he backed off for a while, sending a couple of his own men to work for the family to keep an eye on them. Everything was going well for several years, until he his men started telling him about the rumours of a wild child."

"So he sent out his own group of hunters." Sena sadly added. "But they didn't manager to kill Seijuro, only his mother bear."

"Then a couple years later I show up and manage to capture the boy alive and bring him back home, but he manages to escape right after I leave, only to come back again. Someone decides to tell Rodchenko all about that and he starts planning his next move." Hiruma paused and grinned unnervingly.

"He was going to get rid of the kid and act like he must have run away again, but when he put his plan into motion, he discovered something he hadn't expected. Can you guess what it was?"

Sena's cheeks heated up. "Seijuro and I were in the same bed. It would be hard to try something without one of us waking up."

"Exactly, and by now he's getting a little irritated, so the next morning he calls Lady Shin aside and tells her about what he saw, and she's too angry at you to question him about why he snuck into the kid's room in the first place. He knows you'll be separated now, so he wont have to worry about you the next time he tries anything."

Sena furrowed his eyebrows as he contemplated what he'd be told. "But when he invited everyone to his home, how would he have known that Seijuro wouldn't be coming in advance?"

"Anyone who'd met the kid up to that point would be able to tell he wouldn't be able to behave himself long enough to take a trip anywhere. When his new plan didn't work he waited until he knew the kid would have become a bit more docile before inviting everyone back again and then he attempted to get friendly with his young relative."

"Because then it would be less suspicious if he was around a lot, or something happened." Sena finished what had been left unsaid. "And he knew Lady Shin would celebrate the day of Seijuro's return, and with so many strangers in the house it would be easy to have Seijuro slip away with him somewhere, and no one would notice their absence for a while since there were so many people around."

"Exactly. You're pretty bright kid, I had to explain it to the lady of the house a couple times. Oh, and she grudgingly accepts you now by the way, seeing as you got yourself stabbed to protect her precious son and everything." Hiruma cracked a grin. "You'd better invite me to the wedding."

"We-wedding?" Sena sputtered as all the blood left in his body rushed to his face, making it a startlingly bright shade of red.

Hiruma chuckled at his reaction as he rose from the chair. "If you'll excuse me, I promised the kid I'd wake him up if you awoke. I told him before to be careful not to jostle you, but you'd better prepare yourself to be barrelled into anyways, I don't think he'll be able to hold back now that he'll know you're awake." Hiruma sent a rather rouge wink in his direction.

"O-okay." Sena responded unsteadily, still a little shocked by the marriage comment.

'I'm still too young to get married, we'd need to wait for a couple of years until that.'

Sena waited in a tense silence for almost a full minute before the sound of quickly advancing footsteps reached his ears and Shin burst into the room and ran to Sena's side, dropping to his knees beside the bed.

"Sena." He whispered, holding out a shaky hand and running it over the brunette's cheek. "I was so worried, don't ever leave me like this again. I don't ever want to have to worry like this again." He griped both of Sena's hands in his own, holding them loosely, as if he was afraid Sena would feel pain from anything more than that. Hiruma had apparently been wrong about something for the first time in his life.

"Seijuro, I'm so sorry for everything. I-"

"No, I'm sorry I misunderstood." Shin cut in, his grip becoming fractionally tighter as he fell silent, searching for words to express himself.

"Seijuro, would you lay down with me?" Sena asked slowly and Shin looked at him in shock for a moment before nodding with a blush and moving onto the bed.

Sena couldn't make out much with just the light of the candle left behind by Hiruma, but he was certain that there were dark shadows under Shin's eyes, a testament to his sleepless nights spent worrying over him.

"Seijuro, nothing is your fault." He stated softly, bringing a finger up to Shin's lips when he made a move to protest.

"If I had answered you truthfully several months ago, then this would never have happened. Seijuro, the truth is that I love you."

Shin raised a hand to pull Sena's finger away from his lips. "Really?"

Sena flushed. "Yes. And I know it was horrible of me to keep it to myself! And I know that I was being selfish and a jerk and I put you through so much pain, but, but-"

"Sena, I forgive you, you were just doing what you thought would hurt me less. Suzuna explained everything to me when you ran out."

Sena sighed in relief, he'd have to thank Suzuna for explaining everything for him later.

"Say it again, please." Shin requested and Sena smiled lightly.

"I love you Seijuro."

"I love you too Sena." Shin gently wrapped an arm around him in a cautious hug, careful not to go anywhere near Sena's wound.

"I should probably get back to my own bed. If we fall asleep like this mother-"

"You can stay! That is, if you want to stay. I mean, it's not like anyone will come in here who doesn't already know what's going on or anything." Sena explained and Shin settled down beside him with a content smile, falling asleep almost immediately.

Sena bashfully pressed a kiss against Shin's forehead. "Sweet dreams, Seijuro." He whispered before settling into Shin's embrace, the familiar, comfortable heat of Shin's body lulling him back to sleep, just as it would for years to come.

And in the next room over from where she was crouched with her ear pressed against the wall Suzuna smiled.

"It's about damn time."


	11. Epilogue

FASH: Well, here we are at the end of Wild, I hope you all enjoyed this Tarzan-esqu tribute to Shin/Sena. The epilogue isn't too long, and the end is kind of cheesy, but I hope it makes you smile anyways.

""-speech

''-thoughts

Sena stretched his arms up over his head, careful not to go too far in fear that Shin would see and go out of his mind with worry that Sena might open up his wound again, even though it had mostly healed over by now.

Over the past week Hiruma had forced Sena to stay in bed even though the brunette was certain that he was more than capable of walking around without hurting himself. He suspected it was just a scheme thought up by Hiruma to make him seem more injured than he actually was so that Lady Shin wouldn't be able to bear any ill will against him without feeling guilty for it. Of course, the drawback of that was _everyone else _also thought he was in a worse condition, and they ended up worrying about him more than they should have.

Shin had been particularly insistent on staying at Sena's side while he was bedridden and Takami was more than happy to cancel his lessons to give the both of them plenty of time together.

Suzuna had come around for short visits several times a day, although she hardly attempted to make conversation. Usually she'd just observe Sena and Shin for a while with an all-knowing smile before she got back to her chores.

'Thankfully that's all over now. It feels so good to be able to stretch out my legs again.' Sena smiled lightly as he made his way downstairs, pausing when a familiar set of quick footsteps headed his way.

Shin appeared from the hallway, wildly looking around for a moment before his eyes locked on Sena, who calmly rose a hand and waved at him.

"Sena!" Shin rushed down five steps and stopped at Sena's level, worriedly looking him over. "You shouldn't go off by yourself, Hiruma said you only just became well enough to walk!"

"Seijuro, I feel fine." Sena replied, touched at the amount Shin worried over him.

"You might feel fine, but what if the pain came back while you were walking down the stairs? Even if it's improbable, I can't help but worry."

Sena bit back the need to coo at Shin's adorably protective side. "Well, what do you suggest I do then?"

Shin unceremoniously scooped Sena up into his arms and began to descend the stairs.

"S-Seijuro! This really isn't necessary." Sena weakly protested with a blush as Shin reached the ground level and gently began to maneuver Sena onto his own feet.

"Of course it is." Shin replied stubbornly before a flash of concern lit up his face. "Unless doing that hurt you. Did it? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!"

"Seijuro, calm down, you didn't hurt me." Sena leaned up on his toes to give Shin a soft kiss for extra reassurance. "But you really don't need to carry me everywhere we go, I'm not going to break."

Shin looked about ready to protest but Sena calmly pressed a finger against his lips to silence him.

"If it makes you feel better, you can escort me around whenever I go anywhere, okay?"

Shin nodded, satisfied that Sena would constantly be in his sights in case anything troubling occurred.

"That being said, would you mind going for a walk outside with me? I've been cooped up inside so long I've forgotten what fresh air is like."

Shin nodded, but at the same time his eyebrows furrowed with worry. "Would you like me to grab you a jacket?"

"No, I'll be fine. Besides, it's only a short walk." Sena held out a hand expectantly, smiling brightly when Shin took a hold of it only half a second later.

The air outside was cool and crisp, a welcome difference that Sena wanted to take advantage of for as long as he could until he was brought back to the almost stale air of his room.

They wandered around the grounds several silent minutes, walking along one of the fenced enclosures before Shin stilled, a thought striking him.

"Hiruma told me to invite him to our wedding."

Sena flushed lightly and his fingers twitched in Shin's grip. "Really?" He cast a quick glance around, wondering what had brought this sudden conversation up.

'Well, I don't _see_ Hiruma anywhere...'

"A wedding, that is what mother wanted me to have before, right?" Shin asked curiously and Sena nodded, noticing a familiar coal black mare out of the corner of his eye and flushing even more.

'Wait, wasn't it around here that Seijuro asked me what a bride was?'

"So when mother wanted me to have a bride, she also wanted me to have a wedding?"

"Well, yes..."

"And you said a bride and groom love each other a lot, right?"

Sena smiled sweetly. "Yes, and I do love you a lot."

"So when are we going to get married?"

Sena took a deep breath to calm himself down after the rather informal proposal he just seemed to have received. "Well, uh... I'm only fifteen right now."

Shin cocked his head to the side curiously. "Is that too young?"

"Well, technically yes..." Sena trailed off when Shin slumped in defeat, as though the information was a crushing blow to him. "But I think that if we get my parent's consent, my marriageable age would be sixteen."

Shin nodded to himself thoughtfully before asking: "Are you still feeling well?"

"Yes, why?"

"Let's go meet with your parents."

Sena, feeling oddly giddy as Shin began leading him away, vaguely wondered if anyone would protest to them having a winter wedding.

No one did, although to be honest when they told Seijuro's parents about their plan, after getting the consent of Sena's parents, Lady Shin had proceeded to choke at the mere mention of marriage. Lord Shin had worriedly patted her on the back to clear out her lungs.

"I-I'm alright... But are you certain you're ready to be married in just a few months?" She asked incredulously and Shin, probably under the impression that she wasn't going to agree with their idea and would throw a fit, instinctively moved so that Sena was mostly behind him.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Sena responded, stepping to the side so that Shin wasn't shielding him, and thus showing blatant favouritism.

"Well then, I supposed I'd better get started." Lady Shin mused as she looked upwards, tapping her chin in thought and thankfully not reacting to Shin's protective nature.

"Started? But it's months away."

"My dear child, weddings take ages to plan, come along with me now." She stepped forward and clasped Sena's hand, thinking aloud as she began leading him away. "A wedding in the winter, how untraditional. But I suppose that it will be easier to book and order things this way, since we won't have any other couples to compete with."

Sena followed after her, dumbfounded, and he could just tell that Shin, who was trailing behind them, was wearing a similar expression.

'Has she just accepted the inevitable, or is she just really excited about planning out a wedding?'

Maybe it was a bit of both, she had been neutral to him as of late, not really nice, but not anything like how she used to be to him.

He and Shin were ushered into the study and were instructed to sit down before Lady Shin peacefully began to explain seemingly everything there was to know about weddings.

The past year had certainly been the strangest time of his life, especially the tail end of it.

'But,' He mused as he reached out for Shin's hand, unable to hold back his smile when Shin eagerly took hold of the appendage. 'I wouldn't change a thing.'


End file.
